Tokyo Dome openers
TOKYO – The Red Sox finally have a very good reason to get out of bed.
The exhibition games are over. The regular season is about to start. And their jet lag is fading – but still not gone.
“The last couple of days have been pretty rough,” Tim Wakefield, master of the hypnotic knuckler, said Sunday. “My body’s still adjusting, but I think last night was the first night I got a decent amount of sleep and not waking up four or five times during the night.”
He was awake enough to do some sightseeing for the first time on the trip Sunday before he pitched 52/3 innings in that night’s 9-2 victory over the Yomiuri Giants, returning to his hotel in a cab about five hours before the game.
No touring, though, for Terry Francona, manager of the defending World Series champion. The skipper with tunnel vision sees his hotel, tall buildings and Tokyo Dome, not the shrines and gardens that are part of Japan’s culture.
“I had a peanut-butter sandwich for Easter and something I wasn’t sure what it was,” he said. “We’re in a different city, but it could just as well be San Francisco. It doesn’t matter. I come to the ballpark. I wake up, and I go to the ballpark.”
He’ll be there again today when his team works out ahead of Tuesday morning’s major league season opener against Oakland, when former Seibu Lions great Daisuke Matsuzaka pitches for Boston. Joe Blanton is scheduled to pitch for the Athletics, who may have coped better with the time change because their trip to Tokyo was shorter. Both teams arrived Thursday night.
Oakland beat the Hanshin Tigers 10-2 on Sunday as former Spokane Indian Donnie Murphy hit a grand slam, Jack Cust had a two-run homer and Travis Buck hit a solo shot.
Boston’s J.D. Drew also hit a grand slam Sunday, five months after hitting one in Game 6 of the A.L. championship series against Cleveland.
The teams play again on Wedneday. Oakland is considered the home team for both games.