Sox move into 1st place, but Papi's not back yet.

Big Papi finally homered last Wednesday night and got a rousing ovation. He said the monkey was off his back.

Is the old Ortiz indeed back? Let's see what he's done since then. On Wednesday he took a called 3rd on the next at bat, then doubled in the 9th. On Thursday he grounded to 2nd, grounded to the pitcher, singled to right and lined to second. On Friday he struck out three times (two swinging, one called) and grounded into a 4-6-3 double play. On Saturday he struck out twice, walked and grounded to second. On Sunday he struck out twice, flied to left twice and lined to 1st. That's that's 2 for 18 with a walk and 1 RBI since the homer. From Thursday on he's 1 for 16. Over the weekend he went 0 for 13 with 16 runners left on base. Not by the team...by David. And these are all home games. His average has dropped from a lofty .211 on Wednesday to .195. On Sunday the Sox had 16 hits and scored 12 times. Everyone in the lineup except Big Papi had at least one hit and one run scored.

I don't believe the roid rumors. I do suspect that Ortiz might need lasik. I also suspect that we might see Lars Anderson come up as a DH at some point this season.

Meanwhile, the shortstop problem continues. Nick Green leads the majors in errors, and he's only played in 24 games. Lugo has another 4. Both have made game-blowing errors in the last week. Combine the Green and Lugo errors and you have 12 in only a quarter of the season. That's a pace for 48, way worse than Edgar Rent-a-wreck in 2005. And that number doesn't allow for all those "singles" that were really bobbles or bad throws or balls that Lugo didn't get to. Compare that to Jed Lowrie, who played short in 49 games last year with zero errors. He's due back in July.

Mets fans at Fenway are louder than Yankee fans. At least this weekend they were. During the clapping portion of the "Let's go Red Sox" chant the Mets fans would chime in with an almost equally loud "Let's go Mets." But The Sox had the last laugh with a sold win on Sunday, and they moved into 1st place.

I'm off to Minneapolis in the morning with my daughter, Kara. It's the Red Sox final series at the Homer Dome and we're taking in the Memorial Day afternoon game.