Sports Redux: The Power's Back On

It's been a tough few weeks (months) for the Red Sox. That's always a good time to see the Baltimore Orioles appear on the schedule.

And right on cue, the Birds showed up and served up six home run balls to a grateful Sox lineup. Pedroia and Youk started the party with two HRs in the first, and the Sox had piled up an 8-0 lead before the first Oriole reached base off Clay Buchholz in the fourth. The other homers came from Gonzalez, Drew, Ortiz, and Pedroia. It was Dusty's first multi-HR game ever, prompting a little barking in the dugout and a rebuttal from Terry Francona: "He does all the talking. You just sit there and laugh."

It all added up to a 10-0 drubbing, and a prizewinning quote from glum Baltimore manager Dave Tremblay: "-Buchholz] probably looked like a combination of Don Drysdale, Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax when he got an 8-0 lead." That's pretty much what Paul Byrd looked like in his first start this year. Then he went out a second time and looked like a combination of John Wasdin, Byung-Hyun Kim and Eric Gagne. He'll try again tonight to beat the O's and prove he doesn't need 300 days' rest between starts to be effective.

Where's Richard? That's the question the Patriots are mildly interested in, but they're definitely asking in Oakland. Richard Seymour still hasn't surfaced since the Pats exiled him to Oakland; they're counting on him to start Monday night, so they're a little concerned. For their part, the Patriots are trying to come to terms with a defense that feels like it's turned over three times in the last year. Someone was brave enough to ask Coach Belichick if the D would be as good without Seymour; if you guessed the answer ("We’ll find that out starting this week.") you've passed the first level of Coach Bill Press Conference 2K10.

For what it's worth, the Patriots come in at #2 in ESPN's first Power Rankings, trailing only the defending champion Steelers. Pittsburgh, by the way, is feeling a little proud of themselves these days.

If you saw this picture of Ray Allen and assumed that he's gone all Marbury and is cracking up over the summer, don't worry. It was his kid's birthday party and everybody got their faces painted.