Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

Red Sox drop series to Padres, but more importantly: DAVE ROBERTS

It's an old trope by now, but the results of this series will have some fans wishing that the Red Sox could have saved some of their fourteen-run onslaught Monday night for the next two games. Selfishly, though, I'm happy to have been in attendance for the blowout win, which also marked another return by DAVE ROBERTS to the city where he'll never have to buy a meal or a drink.

Adrian Gonzalez soothes the savage beasts

Originally uploaded by San Diego Shooter on Flickr

This helps. It really, really does.

As I wrote when V-Mart signed with Detroit, I was not, at that time, prepared to join the knee-jerk pitchfork mob that formed immediately. Rather, I sided with those calling for a bit of restraint while the rest of the off-season plan -- whatever it would be -- had a chance to take shape.

But that's not to say I was totally unperturbed at V-Mart's departure. I still wish we had something a little more inspiring behind the plate than a dude we signed out of the minor league system in Texas and a player in the proverbial twilight of his career as a backup.

It wasn't so much defense behind the plate I was most worried about -- neither V-Mart or Tek seemed to be able to throw out a baserunner if their lives depended on it, and apparently problems with throwing the ball back to the pitcher are more commonplace than you might think, and it's supposed to be a correctable problem -- as the loss of V-Mart's offensive contributions. There's just no comparing Saltalamacchia with V-Mart when it comes to the stick; given the vast unlikelihood that Jason Varitek will start, the Sox lost close to 150 points in career OPS when it opted for Salty (.701) over V-Mart (.838) as the (apparent) everyday catcher for 2011.

Yeah, we can hope for another Adrian Beltre story* for Salty, I suppose, but even in his best year (2007), Salty didn't crack .800. Moreover, in his two years with Boston, V-Mart posted an OPS above his career average, with a cool .912 in 2009 and .844 during an injury-plagued 2010 campaign. This had us all a bit, shall we say, tense.

But like I said. Gonzalez is an amazingly effective antidote for that angst, and a vindication for this off-season's anti-knee-jerk movement.