(Sorry about the tardiness. There was a wireless internet issue.)

BALTIMORE — Oh, that’s right. Our own Alex Speier did, and executed it quite well. As Bay gave the Red Sox a 1-0 lead with his second homer in a Red Sox uniform, reaching the right-center field bleachers with a solo shot off Baltimore starter Jeremy Guthrie, and then added a two-run shot in the eighth, I couldn’t help but think about how inspired he was by reading his own inspirational story.

Truth be told, we didn’t do a story on Jason Varitek and he hit a home run three batters after Bay. We were ready to take credit for everything and then the captain ruins it all. Oh well, perfection alluded once again.

Speaking of inspirational stories, I don’t know if you knew but new Red Sox starter Paul Byrd has a book out, “Free Byrd: The Power of a Liberated Life” (Howard). I’m planning on diving into it in the next couple of days, but we will be talking with Byrd tomorrow for the Blog about what’s in the 223 pages along with the process of writing it. He wrote the entire thing himself, starting it as a living will for his kids.

Back to Bay, Alex also touched on that 2000 draft which produced the outfielder in the 22nd round in his A-Blog. As our man points out, the first round of that draft was considered one of the worst in recent memory, making the evolution of Bay, who got just $1,000 for his signing bonus, make may decision-makers feeling a bit icky.

By the way, it was the 12th time Bay has hit two homers in a game.

Had an interesting conversation with Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan about Jacoby Ellsbury. Ellsbury, who was back in the leadoff spot again tonight, made a pretty significant adjustment in his hitting approach that led to some recent success.

It turns out that Ellsbury was hitting with a much more exaggerated leg lift when striding toward the pitcher than in past years, allowing fastballs to get way to deep into the zone before he could react appropriately. After some work, and constant reminders, Ellsbury’s front leg stayed much closer to the ground than ever before, allowing him to hit balls the 400-and-then-some-foot bomb in Kansas City. Before that homer the rookie had just one homer on a fastball all season.

We’ll try and get some video to sort it all out.