The last time...

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The last time the Red Sox won a playoff game at Fenway Park, Justin Masterson earned the win. The last time the Red Sox won a playoff game at Fenway Park, JD Drew hit a home run. The last time the Red Sox won a playoff game at Fenway Park, they overcame a seven-run deficit by scoring eight runs over the last three innings, beating the Rays 8-7 in Game 5 of the 2008 ALCS.

This year things look different. For one, Justin Masterson's season just ended - in Cleveland - and JD Drew is enjoying his retirement, probably hunting an alligator or something.

For another, the 2008 playoffs began with the Rays as the AL East champs, while the Red Sox were the Wild Card entry. Luckily for us, this was before the introduction of the second Wild Card and the one-game playoff.

In 2008, the Red Sox were looking for their second World Series title in two years, and their third in five years, while the Rays were looking for the first title in franchise history.

This year, the Red Sox are looking for their first World Series title in five years, and the Rays... are still looking for the first title in franchise history.

The ALDS starts this afternoon. A best of five series isn't nearly as terrifying as a one-game playoff, but it's still far from a sure thing, especially with the Rays pitching staff. That being said, I have faith in this team. These guys have proven over and over that they're worth believing in, and I can't wait to have my faith rewarded.

With West Coast trip looming, Sox earn another win

Photo via Boston.com

The Red Sox completed a three game sweep of the San Diego Padres with an 8-2 win at Fenway Park this afternoon. Rookie Allen Webster earned his first career win with a quality start, six innings pitched with just two runs allowed on a hot and humid Independence Day in Boston.

Webster had some serious run support from all over the lineup: leadoff man Jacoby Ellsbury scored three times (once on his third home run of the season), Mike Napoli scored twice, and Shane Victorino, Brandon Snyder, and number nine batter Jose Iglesias scored once each, Snyder on his first homer of the season.

The Red Sox are kicking off a ten-game West Coast road trip tomorrow in Anaheim, where they'll play three games against the Angels, then heading to Seattle for four against the Mariners, and finishing up their tour with three games in Oakland before returning to the East Coast for the All-Star Break. Both the Angels and the Mariners are playing below .500, while the A's are in first place and currently claim a 50-36 record. Doubtless all three teams have better records than they would if the Astros hadn't been moved into their division.

Even so, it's important that the Sox maintain their winning ways while we struggle to stay awake during the seven of ten games that will end past 1am on the East Coast. John Farrell emphasized the importance of this road trip after today's victory, and with John Lackey dealing, Jon Lester seemingly back on track, and rookies stepping up, I'd say the Sox are likely to maintain their momentum heading into the All-Star Break.

Insane catch par for the course - for Red Sox fan

Some of you might have seen this crazy guy jumping head first down several steps at Fenway Park the other day to catch a foul ball, and I'm here to tell you that his actions weren't at all out of character. That's right, I know this madman, because he's my sister's brother-in-law, Ben Day.

The death-defying catch has made Day something of a celebrity, landing him on SportsCenter's Top 10 plays and splashing GIFs of the event all over the internet. In case any of you were concerned, Day is feeling just fine after vaulting headlong onto the Fenway Park concourse - this certainly isn't the first diving catch he's made in his time, as he was a three-sport varsity athlete in high school.

In a way, Ben's catch somehow echoes the best of Red Sox Nation: as a group we tend to be dedicated, unconcerned with the odds that we might end up hurt, and just a little bit crazy. I will, however, admit that most of us aren't capable of such an impressive feat of athleticism and hand-eye coordination.

"Sellout" streak officially over

As awful as it was to watch last night's meltdown from Joel Hanrahan, there was a kind of poetic justice about the whole situation. It was the first officially un-soldout game in nearly a decade, and it somehow seemed to mirror the tendencies of the Red Sox over the last couple of years.

Things started off pretty evenly, as the Orioles scored, the Red Sox evened the score, and then the Red Sox pulled ahead by two runs - but the Orioles closed the gap heading into the rain delay. I know I came into the game with high hopes, after seeing the Sox dispose of the Orioles on Opening Day.

The first part of the game was like a microcosm of the 2011 season: the Sox got off to a 0-6 start, but managed to pull themselves out and back into contention by midseason, just as last night's squad fell behind but stayed within reach of a win by the rain delay. Post rain delay, Daniel Nava and Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit two home runs, resulting in jubilation among the Fenway faithful, much like the incredible summer we enjoyed in 2011.

And then Hanrahan came on to close things out. After Koji Uehara, Junichi Tazawa, and Andrew Bailey each pitched a scoreless inning, Hanrahan came in and couldn't close the deal - like the September 2011 meltdown of the entire Red Sox pitching staff (and, even more specifically, then-closer Jonathan Papelbon's personal meltdown against the Orioles on the last day of the season).

Andrew Miller managed to come in and get the last out, but then the Red Sox could not score in the bottom of the ninth - an exercise in futility that resembled 2012 in its entirety.

And so whether you buy my metaphor, last night was the beginning of a new era for the Red Sox. Hopefully the end of the "sellout streak" (which was fraudulent by the end, let's be honest) can be a clean slate for the Sox. Even after last night's loss, the Red Sox are still in first place in the AL East. Alfredo Aceves takes the mound tonight for the series finale, and while I wouldn't have chosen him as the tone-setter, he definitely has something to prove.

Off to Fenway!

I'm headed to Fenway this morning for the home opener - and since I was at the last home game of the 2012 season, I'm pretty much picking up where I left off. Hopefully the Red Sox can keep up the momentum from yesterday's blowout (and from winning the first two series of the season) and defeat the Orioles.

Today's game is sure to be a sellout, but the team is understandably braced for the sellout "streak" to end within the next few home games. Though the team is doing better early on than expected, it's difficult to sell nearly 40,000 tickets to midweek night games in April - it's somewhat less than balmy in this part of the country when 10pm rolls around.

If any of you will be at today's game and want to say hello, I'll be wandering around the park with my obnoxiously large camera from the time that gates open until the festivities start (reportedly at about 1:30), and thereafter in my seat in the bleachers. And as always, you can tweet me!

Cheap seats in April

The Red Sox are absolutely desperate to get fans into Fenway this April. After the home opener on April 8th, ticket prices on Aceticket.com start at $9 for the very next game. Sure, it's for crappy bleacher seats, but you'd pay $3 more to buy them directly from the Red Sox.

The team fully expects the record-setting sellout streak to officially end this month - though, let's be honest, there were swaths of empty seats by the end of 2012.  It's hard enough to entice people to shell out for night games in April when they're optimistic about the team's prospects, but after the disastrous 2012 season, expectations are much more subdued.

Recognizing this, the Red Sox are offering all kinds of incentives to fans who show up to one of their seventeen games in April. To start with, they're offering free meals to children 14 and under (a hotdog, a juicebox, and Goldfish), which is a particularly cunning ploy, because how many parents bring their young kids to midweek night games?

For the adults among us, they're offering 2-for-1 Fenway Franks, half priced hot chocolate, and, perhaps most exciting, $5 beer.  According to the Red Sox website, they haven't sold beer that cheap since the 2004 season, and if you're the sentimental type you might say they're trying to recapture the magic of the Championship run. If you're cynical, you're probably assuming that they're trying to get fans so drunk that we won't notice if the team gets off to a poor start.

Either way, I fully intend to score some bargain-basement seats. It's been a long, cold, snowy winter, and I'll watch the Red Sox for $9 any day.

Season tickets no longer scarce

The Boston Red Sox are losing season ticket holders in droves - to the point that they are having players and executives call deserters personally to try to entice them to stay. Upon reading about this turn of events, I was briefly tempted to add my name to the list, but then I remembered that I don't have any money.

I don't know how the Sox brass can be surprised by this turn of events, since the Boston Red Sox haven't won a playoff game since 2008, and haven't even played in the postseason since 2009.  Meanwhile the ticket prices are among the highest in baseball, but even if they were much lower the Red Sox would be in fine financial shape, as NESN would continue to be lucrative.

Fans - and especially season ticket holders, who shell out for dozens of games - are tired of being expected to pay premium prices for a product that has been overwhelmingly mediocre recently.  The resale market is in dire straights, as anyone who has been to a game in the last year could tell you; you can hear the desperation of the scalpers camped out between the Kenmore T stop and Yawkey Way.

There's something to be said for buying low, since the Red Sox will recover eventually (whether that takes one year or five) and season tickets won't be so available when that rebound eventually comes. Personally, I'm going to keep buying my tickets one game at a time, and capitalize on the below face value rates I'm sure to encounter on mid-week games this April.

Looking to the future?

A few minutes ago, the Boston Red Sox official twitter account posted the above photo with the caption: "Check out new banner being hung outside Clubhouse." The banner is populated by Red Sox greats from the distant and not-so-distant past: Johnny Pesky, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Ted Williams, Luis Tiant, Dwight Evans, Jason Varitek, Joe Cronin, Bobby Doerr, Tim Wakefield, Carl Yastrzemski, Pedro Martinez, and Tony Conigliaro.

The Red Sox are certainly a franchise full of legendary players - the banner even leaves out old time greats like Cy Young and Tris Speaker - and there are certainly some great players on the current roster, as well.  But in recent years it's sometimes felt like the franchise is more vehemently selling the historic accomplishments of the team rather than the chance of future glory.

Nothing made that feeling more palpable than the juxtaposition between the pomp and ceremony of Fenway's 100 Year Celebration (which rightfully and expensively carried on all season), and the horrible losing season under Bobby V. during which nothing seemed to go right.

Throughout the year, Red Sox fans were bombarded with emails about various promotional items to buy - bricks! books! commemorative pins! patches! infield dirt! MORE BRICKS! SERIOUSLY BUY THE BRICKS! All the while, the actual team on the field was floundering under a manager who wasn't right for the team from the start, a flurry of injuries to key players, and one of the biggest trades of the decade that shipped some star players to LA.

Don't get me wrong. I love learning about Red Sox greats of yesteryear. I have dozens of books about baseball and Red Sox history, and I turned every possible writing prompt in college into a chance to wax poetic about the local nine. But I do bristle a bit when I feel like I'm being asked to pay for historical greatness rather than future prospects.

I think it's laudable for the franchise to encourage their current players to study hitting in the legacy of Ted Williams, to be resilient in the face of injury like Tony C., and to be loyal like the late great Johnny Pesky. I just want to be reassured that the front office has its eyes as much on tomorrow as it does on year's past.

Bard back on track?

I grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, which is a pretty hefty three hour drive to Fenway Park - but only around ninety minutes to Hadlock Field and the Portland Sea Dogs.  When I was a kid, the Sea Dogs were a part of the Florida Marlins organization, but they joined the Red Sox farm system (Double A) in 2003, and locals rejoiced, because we could finally follow local minor leaguers up to our major league rooting interest.

I was at a Seadogs game late in the 2008 season, and many of the most promising prospects had already been moved up a notch as the Red Sox called up some players for roster expansion.  There weren't many players on the field that day who were Baseball America household names, and the crowd was paying very little attention to the late-season contest.

Daniel Bard came in as a relief pitcher (after a disastrous first year in the minors as a starter in 2007, the Red Sox converted him to a reliever, with great results), and I remember the sensation of hearing all side conversations around me stop, as fans noticed the skinny kid lighting up the radar gun after seven innings of pitchers tossing in the mid-eighties.

Nothing changed when he initially came up to the big club: he'd come in during the eighth inning (to set up for Jonathan Papelbon) and routinely clock pitches in the triple digits while the crowd cheered its approval. When the Red Sox announced that they were going to make him a starter last year, I wasn't worried - despite the fact that history told us how that experiment would end.

By all accounts so far in spring training, Bard looks like he's back on track. We won't know anything for sure until the games start (the real ones, not spring training games), but I have high hopes for him this season. The bullpen is shaping up to be a real strength for this team, and Bard - if he gets himself back to form - could be a huge part of that potential success.

Sellout sham

Apparently Larry Lucchino and the rest of the Red Sox brass are ready to admit that the record-breaking sellout streak at Fenway Park is about to end.  Of course, anybody who was watching the last few weeks of 2012 knows that there have been empty seats at Fenway for quite some time, and it was obvious that the PR people were fudging the numbers to make it stand.

Lucchino has now predicted that the "streak" will end as early in the season as the second game of the year, citing lowered fan expectations and, of all things, April weather.  The chilly Boston springs certainly never stood in fans' way when we expected the team to perform, but these days our hopes are somewhat more measured.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this team: I think that if all kinds of things go right they could certainly be a contender - but if a few key things head south we could be looking at a second straight losing season, especially in a division like the AL East.  I do plan on taking advantage of fan disillusionment (and my recent relocation to Boston) to get to Fenway more often in April and May - after all, I'm a native New Hampshirite, and a little chilly weather won't keep me away, even if it successfully dissuades other fans from filling up Fenway.

(Almost) Truck Day 2013!

Baseball always seems much closer from this side of the Super Bowl.  Red Sox pitchers and catchers report in six days, with their first workout taking place on February 12, in just over a week,  According to the Boston.com's Extra Bases blog, the Globe's Red Sox beat writers are off to Fort Myers TODAY - there are enough players already in attendance to make the early trip worthwhile.

Tomorrow, of course, it will be time for a tradition unique to Boston: Truck Day, when dozens of fans gather on Yawkey Way to watch the team's equipment depart for spring training in the freezing New England weather.  It's the first harbinger of spring in this part of the country, and a quirky but fun way to celebrate the coming of warm nights spent at Fenway Park.

In the last few years, the Red Sox have realized that fans typically turn out of their own accord, and they've made sure to do some fan-outreach, like the attendance of Wally the Green Monster.  There's no info (that I was able to find, at least) on the Red Sox website or Boston.com about this year's event, and  I'm still back and forth about whether I'll head over there.

Have any of you been to Truck Day before? Are any of you planning to be there tomorrow? Is it worth it? Let me know in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter!