Sox roll over Marlins

The Boston Red Sox received a pleasant surprise yesterday in the Sox's 9-2 thrashing of Florida: Adrian Gonzalez smashing a single and earning a sacrifice fly. Gonzalez spoke about his first game, saying that he had planned to go after the first pitch all along. He was looking for a fastball on pitch 1 and he got it, and so he could just smash it. In addition, he could be heard saying, "I want to play all 162 games," indicating that his shoulder is fully healed from surgery.

Meanwhile, the top two players in the order, both previously injured and missing last year, combined to go 6-6. Yes, that's right. 7-7 for the top three in the first half of the game. Jacoby Ellsbury had threes all the way across, smashing a homer, two doubles, knocking in three, and scoring three in the rout. Dustin Pedroia lined three sharp singles off reigning NL ERA champion Josh Johnson, who gave up 5 and took the loss. David Ortiz also ripped two sharp doubles to add to the win, while Jon Lackey contributed 4 innings and change while giving up just one run and earning the win. Wow. Think about it, last year Lackey was terrible and Johnson was great, now Lackey looks like a champ and Johnson isn't doing too great. I mean, honestly? Lackey's got a 1.74 ERA in spring, and Johnson has 10.00. Looks like the roles are reversed all of a sudden. Let's hope that Lackey can hold up his pace for the rest of the year.

Trivia
Last year Gonzalez finished 4th in MVP voting.