SO: That just ties in with the Bill James/Moneyball OBP philosophy. Get men on and you get men in. And yeah, Barry was 0-for yesterday and looked asleep out in left.

10 in a row for the D-Rays—Lou must be pumped. And the O’s fans must be pissed.

4:00 P.M.: It’s Father’s Day, and I’m right where I belong, with a blue western-Maine lake just to my left and the Red Sox ready to start on TV in front of me. I’ve got my book—a really excellent novel by Greg Bear called Dead Lines—to read between innings, and all is okey-fine by me. It’s Jason Schmidt against Bronson Arroyo, a mismatch on paper, but as pointed out both on ESPN and in these pages, baseball games aren’t played on paper but inside TV sets. So we’ll see. One of these things we’ll see is whether or not Schmidt can strike out ten or more (he struck out twelve Blue Jays in his last start), and whether or not Arroyo (currently 2-5) can keep the ball around the plate.

4:30 P.M.: Bronson Arroyo (whose goatee unfortunately does make him look a bit goatlike) finds his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the first, partly by inducing Barry Bonds to pop up. Bonds continues to be an offensive zero-factor in the series. By the way, you have to give it to the people who designed SBC Park; the only ugly thing about it is the name.[23]

5:00 P.M.: Arroyo settles down, but the Red Sox still don’t have a hit. Kevin Millar took Schmidt deep, but Bonds snared that one, flipping it backhand into the crowd in almost the same motion. The gesture is graceful and arrogant at the same time. Watching Barry Bonds play makes me remember the late Billy Martin muttering about some rookie, “I’ll take the steam out of that hot dog.” Bonds is no rookie, but I think the principle is the same.

5:30 P.M.: Kevin Youkilis breaks up Jason Schmidt’s no-hit bid with a hard double. Arroyo fails to bunt him over, but then Giants catcher A. J. Pierzynski drops strike three. It’s just a little dribbler, but Pierzynski forgets to throw down to first. A couple of batters later, the Sox find themselves with runners at the corners, two out, and Ortiz at the plate. Big Papi, who leads the AL in runs batted in, stings the ball, but first baseman Damon Minor (who’s even bigger than Ortiz) makes a run-saving stab, and Ortiz is out to end the inning.