Welcome Back, Lenny. Come to Mama.

The A's are coming! The A's are coming!

It isn't just that the Sox are home, where they enjoy a slightly better record than they do on the road; or that they have their number one and two starters going for them in Curt Schilling tonight and Josh Beckett tomorrow; or even that they have a chance to improve their already major league best record against a team that is currently a game under .500 and has lost six of their last ten games. In addition to all that, this series is a milestone event:

Lenny DiNardo's triumphant return to Fenway Park.

It doesn't seem possible that it has been more than three years since I took this picture at spring training, showed it to my sistahs, and declared the Rule 5 draftee to be hotter than the southwest Florida sun. Some sistahs never did fully appreciate the Wonder That Is Lenny, but I stuck by him through thick and thin—and even I am a big enough person to admit that there was plenty of thin while he was in Boston. But my loyalty has paid off. Not only is Lenny as adorable as ever, but he's pitching like a man who is desperately trying to impress certain people who have never given him the respect he deserves. Just take a look at his 2007 numbers to date:

5 games, 9.l innings, 8 hits, 1 walk, 2 earned runs, 5 strikeouts
1.93 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, .235 opponents batting average

I'm not the only one who has noticed his renaissance. Lenny earned a shout out from Jeff Horrigan in today's Boston Herald. I don't know if Jeff appreciates the tall, dark, and handsome one in quite the same way I do, but if not, the man love is good too.

So here's my fantasy, so to speak, for the next two games: the Red Sox jump on Oakland starters Joe Blanton and Chad Gaudin early, taking a big lead and knocking them out after, oh, four or five innings. Hot Stuff comes on in relief for the next two to three innings, pitching brilliantly but in vain, as Sox pitchers fail to surrender the lead. Oh, and he occasionally bends down to use the rosin bag or tie his cleats, at which times the NESN camera operators give us nice shots of his backside. Boston wins, Lenny lowers his ERA even further, and there's some eye candy for me and Jeff Horrigan, if he goes that way. It's a win-win.

And maybe tomorrow, certain people will have seen the error of their ways and start being a little nicer to Mr. DiNardo. Not that I'm holding my breath.