GAME ON!! - EARLY ACTION

When finally this epic Grapefruit League struggle got going, the Sox made three lineup changes. In addition to Dice-K leaving for minor-league camp, followed by a swarm of Japanese media, former Jay Kevin Cash took over behind the plate from Varitek and Jacoby Ellsbury gave Manny the rest of the day off. It's assumed Ramirez was heavily involved in the last-minute negotiations (that's an attempt at humour). How far has Shannon Stewart's stock fallen? When he came to the plate as the second batter, the scoreboard listed him as Ray Olmedo. In the second inning, Rolen and Overbay started it off with hard groundball singles to centre. Zaun bounced into a double play to end the frame, dropping his average to .174. In the bottom of the second, Tallet struck out the side on 10 pitches. The Red Sox look like they have a plane to catch. Oh, wait a second. They do. After two no-hit innings from Tallet, Shawn Camp came in and allowed a sliced line drive single to Crisp, a rip to right by Pedroia and a belt-high fastball bombed into the palm trees in left centre by Youkilis, who had already had a busy day.