A little concerned might be the way to look at the Boston Red Sox on March 10. Yes it's early, as there's only been 11 spring training games, but there's been some problems popping up in Camp Tranquility over the past couple of days.
We could look back on this a month from now and look stupid for verbalizing any concern, but a couple of small issues are adding up for the Sox.
The biggest issue of concern is now Josh Beckett's strained lower back muscle. With the season opener two weeks away, it appears to be a long shot for Beckett to pitch in the opener. He's only had two outings this spring, and hasn't faced major league batters yet.
I'm sure the Red Sox will do they can to err on the side of caution with Beckett, including having him miss a 14-hour flight to Japan (not the best thing to be doing when you have a bad back).
Combined with Curt Schilling's shoulder injury and Daisuke Matsuzaka possibly missing the trip, due to the birth of his second child, you're looking at Tim Wakefield and Jon Lester potentially being the starters for the two-game Oakland series in Japan. When the trip to Japan was announced last fall would anyone have thought that Wakefield and Lester would have been the starters in the series?
The signing of Bartolo Colon is looking bigger and bigger everyday (no pun intended).
Add to that injuries that have kept Julio Lugo (lower back tightness) and Coco Crisp (groin) off the field as of late, and the physical ailments are starting to pile up.
A little closer to panic might describe the mood in the executive offices of The New England Patriots.
There are reports saying that Matt Walsh is close to finalizing a deal with the NFL for legal indemnification in return for turning over any video tapes that he may have and telling the league all he knows about the Patriots taping practices.
If he does indeed have tapes of the St. Louis Rams' walk through before Super Bowl 36, the Patriots and Bill Belichick are in a world of trouble. One report I've seen speculates that if those tapes exist, Belichick would be suspended for a year (and is a possible explanation for the hiring of Dom Capers as a secondary coach), in addition to the penalties facing the organization.
Part of me believes that a tape of some magnitude must exist, because the NFL wouldn't have spent the past five weeks trying to work out a legal deal with Walsh for more tape of the Patriots filming defensive signals, which they've already admitted to and been penalized for.
The Patriots have struck the first blow in the PR war against Walsh with today's story in the Boston Globe, pointing out all of the inconsistencies with his resume and that there was no possible way that anyone in the organization authorized him to tape the Rams' walk through.
The next few weeks should be interesting in the Boston Sports Scene and we haven't even mentioned the Celtics yet.
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