Chad W's Boston Red Sox fan blog

After another miserable outing from Clay Buchholz, the Red Sox have optioned the 24-year old right-hander to their AA affiliate Portland Sea Dogs. This is a good move for all parties. Gets a liability out of the Sox rotation and gives Clay all the time to figure things out without any of the pressures. Hopefully he can figure things out and fight for the #5 rotation slot in Spring Training. With Wakefield's return expected to come next week, it really was only a matter of time that a move was made with Clay, especially with the acquisition of Paul Byrd. No word on who takes Buchholz's roster spot for the short-term until Wakefield returns, might be a reliever, might be a position player. We will find out sometime tomorrow.

Now the Sox will go forward with a 5-man rotation of Beckett, Lester, Matsuzaka, Wakefield, and Byrd, and Colon is scheduled to return in September. Is this a good enough rotation to make the playoffs and win in the playoffs? With the top 3 of Beckett, Lester, and Matsuzaka, I believe so. It's only a matter of how consistently the offense and bullpen perform down the stretch.

Continue reading "Buchholz to Portland"

Jon Lester proved once again why he is our ace this season, as he improved to 12-4 on the season hurling 7 strong innings and only giving up 1 run, a homerun to Aubrey Huff.

The Sox had some timely hits and Jason Bay easily had his best game thus far with the Sox, belting two homeruns in the 6-3 win. Even Varitek got into the act, belting his 9th homer of the season.

The bullpen once again continued it's Jekyll and Hyde season as Delcarmen was cruising get the first 2 outs of the 8th and then walked two batters bringing the tying run up to the plate. Papelbon had to come in and almost instantly gave up a double to Huff, making the score 4-3. Fortunately, the Sox scored two more runs in the Top of the 9th and Paps locked it down in the 9th for the W.

Hopefully Daisuke Matsuzaka can continue his great season tonight, with limited walks. If he doesn't walk many batters, he should be fine. Perhaps we'll see his Houdini act on display again tonight as he wiggles out of bases loaded jams without surrendering runs. He's matched up against Daniel Cabrera, a flame-thrower that is often erratic with his control. Expect the Sox to have men on base all night against him. Hopefully, they can cash in and score enough runs to win tonight.

Continue reading "Lester, our ace"

Now I figured we'd lose against Halladay, because, let's face it, it's Doc Halladay. Byrd pitched decent, but his nerves got the best of him and made a few mistakes that wound up costing the Sox the game.

As for yesterday's game, what the hell was that? Beckett goes 2.1 innings and gives up 8 ER? Not my definition of an ace. Hopefully it was just one of those days and not a sign of things to come for Beckett. The Jays are a quality team, but when you're in the middle of a division race as well as competing for a playoff spot, you MUST win the games against the weaker teams.

Hopefully Lester can be the stopper again tonight as he goes against the Orioles. We need to take at least 2/3 from them. We just have to hope the offense can give him some run support.

This road trip could make or break our season. 9-game trip against Baltimore, Toronto, and the Yankees. If we don't have a winning trip, our season could be lost.

Continue reading "Embarrasing, utterly embarrasing"

In what has been a summer full of rain in the Boston area, another game has been postponed. Paul Byrd's Red Sox debut will have to wait as tonight's scheduled game has been postponed until September 13th where there will be a day-night double-header. 1st game at 12:35pm and 2nd game at 7:05pm.

Should be interesting to see if the Sox shift their rotation as a result of the rain-out or if they'll with Beckett for tomorrow night.

Continue reading "Rain, Rain, Go Away"

Going from one game away from the World Series last season to AL Central bottom-feeders this season, such was the life of Paul Byrd as a member of the Cleveland Indians. The man with the throw-back windup and HGH allegations to his name makes his Red Sox debut tonight at Fenway Park against the Toronto Blue Jays, matched up against Roy "Doc" Halladay.

The Sox offense is as hot as it has even been this season and will need to maintain its torrid pace to beat Halladay who leads the Majors with seven complete games.

Will the offense stay hot? Will Byrd pitch well enough to earn the win in his Sox debut? We will find out today, but we can all hope so as the Sox need to keep pace with the injury-riddened first-place Rays who remain 3 games ahead of the Sox, 4 games in the loss column.

Continue reading "The Debut of Paul Byrd"