As the Sox are about to begin game two against the Yanks, here are some thoughts on my mind:

-Red Sox Bullpen:  I have so many mixed emotions on these guys.  Let’s start off on a positive note by talking about what a great trade we made for Ramon Ramirez.   This guy has pitched 15.1 innings and has only given up one run.   I’m liking him as the new set up guy so far.  Let’s hope he can keep dominating.

On the other hand, what’s going on with the rest of the bullpen?  I have yet to see a strong outing from Saito, who’s gone 9 IP and given up 13 hits and 5 runs.  And don’t even get me started with Lopez.  I’ve never  been a big fan of his from the start, and he’s shown nothing to get me on his side yet this season.  I feel for the guy – I really do.  He’s a quiet guy who’s making a miniscule salary compared to the rest of his team.  But I think his time with the Sox has ended. 

Continue reading "Sox Thoughts"

I was thinking about what a great season that the Sox have had thus far.  It’s only been a month and yet these guys have already put together some amazing stuff that would make one hell of a highlight reel.  If I knew anything about making such a reel, here are the highlights that I would include (in no particular order)

-Jonathan Van Evry’s catch against Cleveland, followed by Van Evry’s game winning homer. 

-Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home against the Yanks.

-Dustin Pedroia’s homer in the Red Sox opener. 

-Tim Wakefield almost throwing a no hitter

-Kevin Youkilis homering to beat the Yanks in extras

-Jason Varitek’s grand slam against the Yanks

-Boston coming back from a 7 run deficit against the Os

Continue reading "Sox Thoughts - Why We Believe"

Let’s look at yesterday’s game and figure out how it was obvious that the Red Sox weren’t going to get a W on the board:

You need to take advantage of opportunities given to you by the other team.  For example, when Evan Longoria made an error in the fifth yesterday, we had the bases loaded and the Captain at the plate.  And yet we couldn’t get anything going.  That was our best opportunity to come back in the game after Tampa score 6 times in the top of the inning.  Unfortunately Tek hit a grounder right to Longoria, who wasn’t about to make another costly error.  It’s got to be the worst feeling in the world when the bases are loaded and you know you could have been out of the inning had you not made an error.  Longoria is a smart baseball player and he would have thrown himself into the stands in order to make the third out in the fifth. 

Continue reading "How To Tell That a Ballgame is Over - A Look at Yesterday’s Game"

“Good evening folks, hope you’ve had a wonderful Mother’s Day.  It’s Sunday evening and we’re playing baseball at Fenway Park.  Get ready folks – this is gonna be a fun one.”

I don’t know why, but for some reason the Sunday evening games excite me.  It’s not like I enjoy listening to the John Miller and Joe Morgen talk about the same play for forty-five minutes, but something about the ESPN game really pumps me up. 

What did not pump me up was seeing the Rays score in the first inning right as I was getting ready to leave for a friend’s house.  At first I was just as confused as Joe Morgen as to why Jason Bay didn’t try to throw out Crawford at home.  But then I saw the dozen replays and realized that Crawford made a mistake by not running hard as soon as the ball left the bat (with two outs, there’s really no excuse).  As a matter of fact, I was very intrigued by this and didn’t mind the first thirty minutes of ESPN’s replay of Carl Crawford running from first – after that it got a little tedious. 

Continue reading "Beckett, the Bullpen, and Bay make us Believe"

Okay well he’s not techically gone, but I have to say I am very pleased with that Daniel Bard has taken Javier Lopez’s spot on the roster.  I’ve mentioned time and time again that I’m sure Lopez is the nicest guy in the world, but he isn’t reliable to have on the mound.  Bard, on the other hand, is going to be very exciting to watch when he makes his Major League debut – as long as his debut isn’t at 1:00am Eastern Time. 

That’s right, we’re on the West Coast for the next week.  The only good thing I can say about this is that hopefully I’ll be able to watch both the Bruins AND the Red Sox without having the luxury of NESN plus on my television.  Bruins – let’s try to avoid both elimination AND overtime tonight, please.

Continue reading "Sox Thoughts - Later Lopez!"

Home plate umpire Jim Joyce gave all of us on the East Coast a start last night after jumping up from behind home plate to issue a warning to both ball clubs in the third.  As it turns out, both clubs were informed before the game even started that the umps would be keeping a close eye on them, according to Lyle Spencer from mlb.com. 

That certainly cleared up some of the air for me.  There was no reason for Masterson, who clearly couldn’t find the strike zone last night, to put on the lead runner in the third.  Spencer also mentioned that Hunter told his skipper Mike Scocia that he also didn’t believe Masterson was trying to hit him.  I was very pleased to see that mlb.com posted something about the pitch because I was really flustered by the whole thing.  For anyone who’d like to read the article here’s the link http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090513&conte

Continue reading "I'll give you a warning..."

So I get home last night and turn on the TV only to find that the Sox are losing 7-4.  “Okay,” I think to myself, “it looks like I picked a good night to go out.”  Then I see that Daniel Bard has just entered the game.  Now I’m very happy that I just turned on the TV.

And if that wasn’t enough, Heidi Watney was back.

But in all seriousness, it’s a pretty ugly box score if you look at the whole thing.  To see the Red Sox blow a lead and then to see the Angels continued to put on runs after they took the lead isn’t a pretty sight.  Then scrolling down the page I noticed Ellsbury got caught stealing…that’s not any more pleasant.  So what did happen last night that us Sox fans can be happy about?

Continue reading "Let's look on the bright side of last night's game"

Before I go into my “woe is me” mode for yesterday, let me just say that there was some incredible defense on both sides of the Sox-Angels game.  Although I was furious as the game concluded, I can’t say it wasn’t a fun game to watch.  Whether it was Nick Green cleanly fielding a bunted ball, or Jason Bay diving for a fly in left, the Sox made it clear (at least defensively) that they wanted to win yesterday’s ballgame.    And how about that play by JD Drew to keep the game scoreless in the 8th?  What a play. 

Also, as awful as it was to watch it, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the catch that Hunter made against Pedroia yesterday.  That was one heck of a play.  Sure I was angry in the 10th, but that was one of the best catches I’ve seen.  It wasn’t a diving catch, but it was a great one.  Props to you, Hunter.

Continue reading "Boston, you're still my home"

I just read Lester’s comments as to why he didn’t throw to second in the 6th inning that could have potentially lead to a double play.  Apparently Lester was expecting to see Lugo covering second, not Pedroia.  When he saw Lugo at shortstop, that must have thrown him off.  Although he could clearly see Pedroia there at second, the split-second decision he had to make forced him to throw the ball to first.  Sure it seemed like an easy decision for us, because, it was.  But for Lester in the heat of the moment, he got confused and threw to first. 

Although Lester acknowledged his error after the game last night, I’m sure he realized his mistake right away.  That couldn’t have made things much easier for him in the sixth, as he went on to give up an RBI single as well as the go ahead homer.  And that was it for Lester. 

Continue reading "Sox Thoughts - Blanking in the Ballpark"

The one game the Sox win this series and I don’t even get a chance to write about it before the Sox lose another one…

Well, that’s baseball for you.  I was actually walking through Boston last night after seeing the National Tour of Spring Awakening (which was amazing, by the way) and caught the score of the Sox game through a restaurant window.  “Oh good!”  I thought.  “We’re up 4-0.”  As it just so happened, I was just in time to see Yuniesky Betancourt hit a two run homer to change the score to 4-2. 

Don’t get me wrong – we won last night.  Great ball game.

Today wasn’t so great.  I got into my car just in time to hear the 9th inning where Green made the error and Franklin Gutierrez hit the walk off single to win it for the M’s.   “Great,” I thought.  “Did anything good happen in this game?” 

Continue reading "Sox Thoughts - Bad Luck on the West Coast"

Seriously, I got into my car at 9:45pm last night expecting to catch the end of the Sox game as I got out of rehearsal.  But instead I hear John Rish, and he’s not giving the game highlights – he’s giving the out of town scores.  My first thought was maybe one of the pitchers threw a no hitter (I would have been frustrated to find out that I had missed another one).  But that wasn’t the case. 

As it turned out, I missed an awesome pitchers duel between Brian Tallet and Tim Wakefield.  Although it wasn’t a no hitter, it was quite a battle by both pitchers.  Wakefield got the win after pitching an impressive 8 innings while only allowing 5 hits and 2 walks.  He surrendered one homer to former Red Sox player Kevin Millar (boy did he crush that ball).  He also struck out three.  To top it off, it was only a 97 pitch effort by Wakefield.  I wrote earlier this season about how this is the complete opposite I was expecting Wake’ to pitch this year, and I couldn’t be happier that he’s proving me wrong.  Keep it up, Wake’!

Continue reading "Well That was a Fast One"

Did anyone else get the chills last night as Ortiz’s shot just cleared the center field fence in the fifth?  I sure did.  I kept smiling for the rest of the inning (which was hard not to with all the homers) and even laughed out loud as I realized the team was giving Papi the cold shoulder when he came back to the dugout.  And Red Sox Nation topped it off by giving him one of the loudest ovations of the season, to which Papi answered with a curtain call.  What a great moment at Fenway Park. 

Then making the Fenway Faithful even more respondent, Jason Bay followed suit with a home run of his own (that’s 12 on the season – HR Derby??) which was then matched by a homer by Mike Lowell.  But don’t  forget about Varitek’s homer, second of the game, that was hit even before Papi came to the plate.  I mentioned yesterday about how Varitek had an off year in 2008 and how now he seems to have got his groove back.  I also said that Papi might do the same.  Varitek is proving to us that you can have an off year but still come back. 

Continue reading "Papi Power - What a Game!"

We all know that our offense hasn’t been much of a concern in 2009.  Bay is hitting homers left and right, Youk is back off the DL (4-8, 2 R, RBI since his return) and Papi finally ended his drought.  There are others contributing to the Red Sox offense, but I want to take a look at the guys who perform in the other half of the inning – the pitchers.

Tim Wakefield has shocked everyone in Red Sox Nation by starting off with a 5-2 record and a 3.59 ERA.  He has also thrown two complete games.  I’ve mentioned before how I thought Wakefield should have called it a career prior to 2009, but he’s proved to me and everyone else that he should stay right in the Sox rotation where he belongs. 

Although he has not had a great start to the season, Lester pitched an excellent 6.2 innings yesterday, allowing only 1 run and 2 walks.  He struck out 4 and allowed 8 hits.  I mentioned yesterday how Penny allowed 9 hits which seemed like a lot.  In comparison, 8 sounds like a lot too.  However considering he didn’t give up a run until the 7th (which was when Ramirez came in to try to clean up his mess), 8 hits isn’t all that bad. 

Continue reading "Sox Thoughts - Some Positives About Our Pitching"

This has been a big topic on WEEI lately.  You can’t help but wonder whether or not our starting rotation is going to change with all the extra pitching we have.  Right now we have a decent rotation of Becket, Lester, Matsuzaka, Wakefield, and Penny.  Meanwhile, redsox.com reports that Smoltz says he’ll be ready to pitch for Boston in just three more starts.  Then you have Clay Buchholz in Pawtuckett with a 3-0 record who nearly threw a perfect game on Monday. 

I suppose this is a good situation to have too much food on your plate – and it is.  It’s very excited to see what’s going to happen in the next few weeks or so.  I am a little worried, however, that we are going to do somethings that perhaps we shouldn’t do:

Continue reading "Sox Thoughts - What Will We Do With All These Pitchers?!"