Things got plunky in the Yankees-Red Sox game

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My musings from yesterday about the Yankees-Red Sox series getting boring still stand, though they probably need to be qualified in light of the fun little dustup in the seventh of last night’s game. No, the John Lackey plunking of Francisco Cervelli wasn’t A-Rod/Varitek or anything, but there was at least some fire there.

The scene: Cervelli hit a homer in the fifth. He doesn’t hit a lot of homers and this one was a blast. So you could understand that Cervelli was a bit enthused about it. He emphatically clapped his hands as he crossed home plate.  John Lackey and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia didn’t much care for it and the very next pitch Cervelli saw went straight into his back. Benches cleared and there was jawing, but no one fought. Probably because these two teams have a lot of old guys on them and no one wants to break a hip.

Lackey, because he doesn’t want to get suspended, says the plunking wasn’t intentional. But the chatter from him and Saltalamacchia after the game suggests otherwise. Lackey said it was “a bit much” and suggested that since Cervelli hadn’t hit a lot of home runs in his career that he doesn’t have room to celebrate.  Saltalamacchia — who is all of 26-years-old — decided to play the “kids today don’t respect nothin'” card:

“As far as the clapping goes, yeah, that could have been a little much. You don’t show anybody up … The game is changing. Younger guys are coming in. I’ve seen it. Elvis Andrus, Alcides Escobar over at short. I mean a lot of guys – the Latin players – that’s the way they play the game. And it’s OK to an extent. But if they go over that, you have to kind of step back.”

He later clarified that he wasn’t singling out Latin players and that he just didn’t speak too artfully. His real point was clear anyway: these kids today are out of control!

To which I offer a hearty “meh.”  Grow the hell up. Cervelli pumps his fist when he gets a good sandwich. He woops it up if he tosses a wadded up piece of paper into a trash can on the first try. If Cervelli gets one more home run in his career it’ll be a gift from the friggin’ gods, so let him have his little moments. It’d be different if he were offering a metaphorical “in your face,” but he wasn’t. He was merely celebrating the fact that, occasionally, he’s able to transcend his basic Francisco Cervelliness.

And like I said in the recaps this morning, if you don’t want guys like that celebrating home runs, don’t let guys like that hit home runs. It’s a skill the rest of baseball has totally mastered when it comes to Frank Cervelli, so it’s not too big a trick.

Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN on opening day

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Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN when the defending World Series champion Houston Astros host the Chicago White Sox on opening day.

Clemens made four appearances on last year’s KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. He will be stepping in on March 30 for David Cone, who will be doing the New York Yankees opener against the San Francisco Giants on YES Network.

“Roger has been sort of a friend of ours for the last year, so to speak, he’s in. He’s been engaged, knowledgeable and really present,” said ESPN Vice President of Production Phil Orlins. “You know, whatever past may be, he’s still tremendously engaged and he really brought that every time he was with us.”

Clemens was a seven-time Cy Young winner but his career after baseball has been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. He is a Houston native and pitched for the Astros for three seasons.

Orlins said that with the rules changes and pitch clock, it is important to have a pitcher in the booth with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez.

“We don’t feel like we have to have the dynamic of Eduardo with a pitcher, but we certainly think that works. Throw in the added factor of rule changes and it is better to have a batter-pitcher perspective,” Orlins said.

Orlins did not say if this would open the door for future opportunities for Clemens as an ESPN analyst.