The More Things Change...

It all looked awfully familiar this afternoon, didn't it? Schilling was on his game, Tek had a big hit, Papi hit a bomb, the center fielder/leadoff hitter scored from first on a double and made a great catch, and Manny made a routine play pretty exciting out in left field. If not for Foulke getting hammered in the ninth inning, it would have looked like 2004 all over again.

Other than Foulke's inning and a boneheaded baserunning play by Alex Gonzalez, the day couldn't have gone much better. Schilling had every pitch working and appeared to have both his old movement and much of his old velocity back, a wildly encouraging sign. Mike Lowell's recent discovery of his swing resulted in a homer, just the thing he needs to get his confidence where it's needed. Coco Crisp made that special catch, and looked faster than Johnny Damon ever did on that sprint home in front of Papi's double. Papelbon was lights out in his one inning. There were even a couple of hits from Gonzalez and a base hit by Trot Nixon against a lefty.

Lots of questions were answered today, and most of them in favor of optimism. Now if the A's can just beat the stinkin' Yankees tonight, we'll start the year a game up. Like I said earlier today, color me happy...