Opening Day: Red Sox vs New York Yankees

Sunday is a very important day for Boston – maybe even more important than my birthday. Its baseball’s Opening Day baby. The New York Yankees will be making their pinstriped presence at good ol’ Fenway Park, or shall I say “new” Fenway Park with the recent renovations. I’m sure A-Rod and his posse will be coming primped and ready to play their A-game, but with Fenway Park sold out, it will be hard to concentrate with the rowdy Beantown fans. We get pretty intense.

Obviously we all know that this is the biggest rivalry in baseball and in the entirety of sports – equivalent to the Bruins and the Canadians in the 70’s. The Red Sox and Yankees have been rivals for a long time and with both teams claiming world champ titles, this is promises to be one helluva game. I’m sure the Easter Bunny will even make an appearance.

This year, the Red Sox are waving their red flags, due to the fact that the Yanks have a high powered offense – A-Rod and Mark Texeira. With the Sox generally being an offensive team, GM Theo Epstein has decided to take the defensive approach in response to not resigning Jason Bay – who led the team in home runs last year.

But, with the Sox spend all their money on pitchers, and to their advantage, the Sox have a very dominant starting pitching rotation, with Beckett, Lester, Lackey, Wakefield, Buchholz (best prospect, but so young) and Dice-K. Needless to say, Beckett, Lester and Lackey are three potential number one aces on any team.

My feeling is that, the Red Sox will still hit, but they won’t be scoring, considering Epstein didn’t replace the “big bat.” However, there is word on the Rumor Mill that, in July, if the Red Sox don’t produce enough offensively, they will try and acquire “big bat” Adrian Gonzalez.

So let’s see if the Yankees made the right choice by signing Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson. Boston’s hoping for a big win here, so get your peanuts and enjoy the game.

Here is the projected lineup:

Ellsbury

Pedroia

Martinez

Youkilis

Ortiz

Drew

Beltre

Cameron

Scutaro

Pitching: Beckett against Sabathia