Actual Opening Day!

This is the first Sox gear I've had with somebody's 
number on it since my Yaz t-shirt when I was 8.
Gift from an admirer last year but I dig the
green City Connect uniforms after being lukewarm about
the alternative uniform concept for a long time. 
I apologize for all the Sox losses on the road trip.
I realized it's my fault because I didn't wear a 
jersey during the games. If they win today, you can
credit me 100%

 It's actual opening day at Fenway! Where we collectively celebrate and pretend we're not already four games under .500 after a week! Day baseball on a Friday! That, friends, is a good Friday.

Actually it remains a bit weird that MLB plays on the major Christian holidays in April, since they didn't back in the days of the 154 game schedule (and Boston blue laws), but the season didn't usually start until mid-April anyway so the scheduling conflicts were moot. And in Boston, once upon a time, nobody would have shown up for a game on Good Friday, much less Easter. But times have changed.

Roster moves: Garrett Whitlock to the paternity list (congrats!), Johan Oviedo to the the IL (after maybe pitching just a bit too long in the first horrible loss against Houston). 

 

Zack Kelly and Tyler Uberstine both recalled from the WooSox for right-handed bullpen backstopping. Kelly's given up 2 baserunners against 11 batters faced in 3 IP in Woo this year, and has been a high leverage, high strikeout guy in AAA. At 31, he's had only 115 IP in parts of the last three seasons in the majors. My favorite Kelly trivia: he was signed for $500 as an undrafted free agent by the A's back in 2017, having played at Newberry College and Concord University (wherein he is the only alumnus to have played in the majors to date) which play in Div III and Div II respectively, and each have about 1400 students. I mean, this was 2017, not 1917. $500 likely didn't even pay Kelly's bus fare to the instructional league. Uberstine played NCAA ball at Northwestern, after getting cut as a first year player at Stanford, didn't even pitch in college until his junior year, and was drafted in the lofty air of the 19th round in 2021 (they don't even have a 19th round anymore). He will making his MLB debut when he pitches. He's tiny for a pitcher in the 21st century: a mere 6' 1". I love guys like this: proof you can still claw your way into the show with persistence and talent, even with no pedigree.