Beckett first seven game winner in MLB

 

With a 9-2 win over the Blue Jays last night Josh Beckett improved to 7-0 becoming the first seven game winner in the majors. Beckett went seven innings giving up only five hits and one run, a first pitch lead off HR to Alex Rios. The middle of the order struggled again accounting for none of the Sox nine runs. Youkilis, Pedroia, Lowell and V-Tek all had home runs off of Toronto starter Victor Zambrano.

Josh Beckett is locked in right now. This is the pitcher the Sox thought they were getting last year when they traded with the Marlins to get him. He is the ace of the staff, no matter what Curt Schilling says at this point. With Dice still have some control problems Beckett’s improvement is that much more welcome.  Jon Lester will be back in the not to distant future as well.  I still believe we have the best starting five in the AL East and maybe all the majors.  Not only are the starters solid but our bullpen is solid and maybe the best in the league to this point.

A Sox fan heads to NY

Thats right, I am heading to NY for the weekend. This will be my second time in the Big Apple and I am wearing my Sox apparel proudly. I am ready for the looks, sneers, grumbles and whatever else comes my way. I plan on being out and about most of the day on Sunday and taking plenty of pics displaying my newly purchased New Era Game Day Hat all around the city.  Check back on Monday to see if I survived this adventure and to see just where I went.

Sox split series with the A’s – Mariners return for make up game

 

Boston won last night 6-4 to earn a split against the Oakland A’s in the two game series after losing 5-4 in ten innings the night before. Josh Beckett improved to 6-0 on the year and is the first pitcher to get 6 wins this year. Also worth noting is each starter got at least one hit last night, the first time that has occured this season. Papi, Manny, V-Tek, and CoCo all went 2-4 last night. Beckett went seven innings giving up six hits, three runs and fanning seven, another strong outing for him. Hideki Okijima pitched the eigth inning and Mike Timlin came on in the ninth to get the save. Papelbon did not pitch last night after blowing the save in the ninth inning the night before wasting a solid outing by Curt Schilling.

Dice – K pitches tonight against another AL West team, the Mariners.  This is a make up game from the first series that was rained out.  Dice gets a chance at some redemption after being matched up with Felix Hernandez in his home bebut for the Sox a few weeks back.  Dice pitched well, but Hernandez was lights out.   The Mariners are starting Horacio Ramirez.

Sox take series from O’s with Pena slam

The Red Sox took the series from the O’s last night with an 8th inning grand slam from Wily Mo Pena that was the game winner sending the Sox to New York for their weekend series with the Yanks on a winning note. Pena showed his promise with two hits and the four RBI, if he could just do this on a regular basis. Youkilis, Drew, Ortiz and Lowell were the other Sox hitter with a hit. With his hit Lowell extended his hit streak to twelve straight games last night. Sadly, Manny went hit less again. Adam Loewen, the O’s starter, held the Sox in check for the most part but Chris Ray out of the pen in the eigth inning let the game slip away after walking the bases loaded before surrendering the grand slam to Pena.

Josh Beckett improved to 5-0 and joined an exclusive club in Red Sox history. He joins Babe Ruth (1917) and Pedro Martinez (2000) as the only Red Sox pitchers to go 5-0 in April. Beckett was previously unaware of Ruth’s pitching ability, however, he was aware of Pedros saying “I don’t know how elite Babe Ruth was as a pitcher, but he was an elite hitter. Pedro Martinez was, maybe for seven or eight years there, the most dominant player.” Beckett went eight innings allowing two earned runs and striking out three. Paplebon came on in the ninth for his seventh save of the year.

And we are back to earth and Sox News and Notes

From the high of sweeping the Yankees to a dismal loss to the Blue Jays at home, sigh…

Julio Lugo, David Ortiz and Manny all go hit-less and Dustin Pedroia accounts for the two Red Sox runs last night. Wakefield got roughed up over 6 innings of work giving up eight hits and four runs and our bullpen looked average last night. Both Wakefield and Timlin gave up homers to the Jays. Here is the boxscore.

Manny went 0-5 last night dropping his average back down to a paltry .209, we really need him to get going and stay going. Going 0-5 against the pitchers the likes of Tomo Ohka and the rest that they threw out there is just hard to watch. I thought Manny might have begun a hot streak after Sundays game against the Yankees but obviously not. He has feasted on Toronto pitching during his career with 52 homers, the most the Blue Jays has allowed to any opposing player in its history. He also has 129 RBIs against Toronto, just two behind Harold Baines for the most against the Jays.

Sox Notes
After a relatively good series against the Yankees CoCo Crisp sat out last nights game against the Jays with a minor oblique injury

Julian Tavarez will face Jays ace Roy Halladay in a rematch of last Thursday’s encounter in Toronto on Tuesday at 7:05 p.m. ET. Tavarez took a no-decision in that one, but the Red Sox rallied back from a 3-1 deficit to win after Halladay’s left the game.

There is a lot of banter on sports radio and in the media about the Sox going after A-Rod this offeseason if he indeed opts out of his contract. We would be foolish not too. Our only significant free agent at the end of the year is Curt Schilling. Don’t you think Theo is thinking about really getting rid of Manny yet again for a player that is two years younger and produces more than Manny? Also don’t forget that Lowell is going to start declining as well. A-Rod would fill two holes for the Sox. The big question around A-Rod is can he produce in the playoffs? To this point the answer is no, but he is having an MVP season yet again and is a threat in any line up. Not only that but taking him away from the Yankees sure would be gratifying.

Matt Clement is still in Florida for extended spring training.  He had his labrum and rotator cuff operated on last September and the Sox are taking a slow gradual approach with him.

A clean sweep and an incredible final game

THE BEST RIVALRY IN SPORTS PERIOD!!!

And this series proved it without a doubt. If you dont think so you didnt watch the three games I watched this weekend.

The Sox came back in each of the games to win and swept the Yankees at Fenway for the first time in 17 years. After the five game sweep at the hands of the Yankees last year in Fenway this is a bit of redemption. This series had it all, come backs, key hits, good pitching, bad pitching and most of all home runs and more home runs.

I dont want to review each game, however, here are the box scores from each game: Game 1 Game 2 Game 3

The series came down to pitching and the Red Sox pitching was just plain better. Schilling, Beckett and Dice – K all took their lumps but came out with a win against a great Yankees line up. The Yankees pitching was mediocre to say the least. Pettitte had the best outing of the three starters for the Yankees. Where our pitching really shined was in the bullpen. Our pen was lights out and the Yankees just seemed to fall apart, especially Mariano Rivera who came apart in Game 1 for Yankees. We have owned him lately and that continued in this series. Torre even used Pettitte again in a relief role last night. Paplebon and Okijima are a dangerous duo to deal with along with Timlin and Donnelly out of our pen.

The Sox offense really came alive in the series, especially the bottom third of the order. Varitek and CoCo Crisp all had key hits and scored runs for us. But the one big piece that was missing seemed that came alive was Manny and finished the night with three hits and got his average above .200 for the season. Manny, Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek all homered in consecutive at bats for the Sox off of Yanks starter Chase Wright in the bottom of the fourth inning.  This is he fifth time in MLB history this has occurred.  Of note here is that J.D. Drew was one of the hitters on the Dodgers team that accomplished this last year, just not off the same pitcher.  The rest of the heart of the order also came up big, Big , Youkilis, and Alex Cora all had key hits for us and J.D. Drew continues to hit well.

Our pitching and hitting won the games but the Sox showed lot of heart and some grit in this series. Usually when faced with a deficit to the Yankees we seem to fold and die. Not this time, we came back in each of the games and showed some mettle that had not been seen in quiet some time – the 2004 ALCS to be exact. This is a good building block to the rest of the season for the Sox. There is definitely a buzz around this team this year.

We are now four games up on the Yankees with a big series coming against the Toronto Blue Jays starting tonight and an even bigger series at Yankee stadium this weekend. But take a look who is in second place in the division, the Baltimore Orioles who are only a game back of us. As fantastic as this series was there is still a lot of season left and the AL East could shape up to be one of the most contested division in baseball. We all know the Yankees pitching will come back at some point. I still believe that it will come down to the Sox and Yankees dueling it out for the division with the loser getting the wild card.