Bill Buckner exposed the Red Sox as a bunch of softies upon his return to a place where, for too long, revulsion unjustly trumped respect.
Kevin Youkilis said he was nearly in tears when Buckner threw a strike to Dwight Evans with the ceremonial first pitch in yesterday's home opener at Fenway Park. Manny Delcarmen, who was 4 when Mookie Wilson's roller skipped between Buckner's legs in 1986, said he had goose bumps. David Ortiz pronounced it cool. Mike Lowell called it inspiring.
"I think everyone here has gone through ups and downs," Lowell said. "Unfortunately, an unbelievable career gets marked by one play. That's so unfair, especially for a guy who was the epitome of grinding it out.
"It's a historical play and all that, but it's a shame that that's what people relate Bill Buckner to, instead of what a good player he was."
Whatever empathy the Sox felt for Buckner did not extend to the Detroit Tigers, to whom they showed no quarter in a 5-0 decision that dropped the Tigers' record to 0-7. The Tigers, who this winter bumped their payroll to a high-rent district ($138 million) even beyond the well-heeled Sox, will have to make some history of their own if they intend to play in October.
No team has ever begun a season 0-7 and advanced to the postseason. The Red Sox have begun only one season by losing their first seven games, and that was in 1945, when most of their best players were away at war. The Yankees have never started 0-7. The last seven teams to start 0-7, after the 1983 Houston Astros, who finished 85-77, have lost 90 or more games.
"I think anyone would be amazed if someone said they'd start 0-7," Lowell said. "I think it's more of a hiccup than the team they really are. There's too much talent over there for that to continue."
The Sox were more concerned with putting a halt to a losing spin of their own, having dropped three straight games to Toronto at the end of their 19-day, 16,000-mile, three-country, season-opening, Brother Love Traveling Salvation Show. Daisuke Matsuzaka placed their world back on its proper axis by shutting out the Tigers on four hits through 6 2/3 innings, his second consecutive strong start.
Both manager Terry Francona and pitching coach John Farrell noted that on the 14 occasions Matsuzaka had a 1-and-1 count on a hitter, he threw a strike 11 times.
"That really swung the count in his favor and really kept the hitters on the defensive," Farrell said of Matsuzaka, who walked four, struck out seven, and withstood dropping temperatures and swirling winds that became an increasing challenge as the game went on, according to catcher Jason Varitek.
