Baltiwho?

First off, my apologies for such an extended absence. Work's been pretty crazy as we are preparing to move our entire operation across the street, plus my 50" Samsung DLP is busted and in desperate need of repair, meaning there hasn't been much chance to watch the games lately. Anyway, before we dive in, here's a recap from MLB.com of the past three games:

4/24 (10-3, Sox Lose)
4/25 (6-1, Sox Win)
4/26 (5-2 Sox Win)

The game on the 24th was just a messy Tavarez loss to the Blue Jays... four errors, including a horrible throw by Ramirez that resembled a little league play and a bungled catch in the outfield by WMP (who would end up making up for it last night). The funny thing about this one was that a lot of the odds makers were favoring the Sox, since we were at home. Umm, hello!!! The chances of beating Halliday two starts in a row are never that good, and the Jays always seem to get hot at Fenway... looks like they need to start watching more baseball.

The next game was down in Baltimore against the Orioles. Schilling had a solid game, allowing 1 run on 5 hits with 3K's and 2 walks. Okijima and Donnelly each pitched an inning to close it out. Ramirez and Lowell drove in two, Papi drove in one to break a 1-1 tie, and Cora hit a homer off Cabrera, who he was 9 of 16 against lifetime (if I remember correctly). The real story of the game though was the resurfacing of the bloody sock story. Apparently Gary Thorne, the announcer for the Orioles, said on air that the sock was painted red and not blood soaked. Well, the airwaves were full of comments on it yesterday, people believing one thing or the other. Here's the story and it's conclusion from the Boston Globe:

Bloody Mess (4/26/2007)
Hole Uncovered in Sock Story (4/27/2006)

Hopefully that's the last we'll hear of this for another 2 and a half years...

Last night's game, the finale of a quick 2 game set, went our way again, as in the top of the 8th WMP hit a grand slam off of the Orioles' closer Chris Ray, who gave up a walk-off grand slam to A-Rod on 4/7. You absolutely need to watch the interview with him after the game, it's classic!! Looks like Baltimore might need a new closer, which sucks for them considering how much they spent this off-season rebuilding their pen. I was pretty psyched for Wily Mo as everyone on the radio yesterday was making fun of him, calling him Wiffy Mo. Beckett got the win and joined Babe Ruth and Pedro Martinez as the only Sox pitchers to win 5 games in April - pretty good company!! Papelbon came in to close it out, and picked up his 7th save of the season.

As of this morning, the Sox are sitting pretty atop the AL East, 3 games up on Toronto at 14-7, and still have the best winning percentage in all of baseball at .667.

In other news, Phil Hughes, one of the most highly touted pitching prospects around, made his major league debut for the Yankees last night, losing 6-0 to the Blue Jays. Hopefully he won't be as good as everyone's claiming he is.

Oh, here's one more story from the Globe, via everyone's favorite reporter CHB, about Dice-K and his throwing habits... not sure how much of it needs to be taken with a grain of salt though...

Slinging it with the best of them (4/27/2006)

Tonight we get Matsuzaka against Pettitte at Yankee Stadium. Can't wait for that one!! Let's hope we can keep the streak going and sweep again :)

Back-to-Back-to-Back-to-Back! (Lucky Sevens)

What a glorious weekend in Red Sox Nation! Here's a recap of the games from Saturday and Sunday:

4/21 (7-5, Sox win)
4/22 (7-6, Sox win)

On Saturday Beckett benefited from a ton of offense and pitched well enough to hang on to the lead and move to 4-0 on the season. Ortiz hit a two run bomb, Coco went 2-4 and has a higher BA than Manny, Varitek also went 2-4 to continue his offensive recovery, and Pedroia sat out the game. As good of a game as it was, it was the easiest win the Sox had this weekend and probably the least memorable of the set, with the possible exception of Papelbon's save.

Sunday's game was pure insanity. Wright pitched solid through two innings, with Dice-K giving up 3 runs by the time the Sox got to bat in the 3rd. The first two batters were sent back to the dugout with nothing to show, sending Man-Ram to the plate. Then the flood gates opened... Manny homers, JD homers, Lowell homers, & Tek homers, back-to-back-to-back-to-back!! Sox take the lead, 4-3. Dice-K proceeded to give up two more runs, giving the Yanks the lead once more by a score of 5-4. Lowell homered again with two on in the 7th to give the Sox the lead for good at 7-5. One more Yankee run would come in with Okajima in relief for Dice-K in the 8th, but Donnelly came in to get the last two outs and Papelbon shut them down in the 9th with some game-saving help from his brand new best friend Pedroia at second. Pedroia also looked good offensively, slapping a nice double down the left field line past A-Rod and making solid contact in each at bat. Plus it was fitting watching A-Rod fail to step up in the clutch against us yet again, despite his incredibly hot April. Overall, my stomach was in knots the whole time... what a great example of the tension & suspense that makes baseball the best sport there is.

While I have very few negatives to highlight from Sunday's performance, there were a few.

1. Coco started the game on the bench, possibly due to an injury sustained on Friday night, but barring that I thought it was foolish to leave him out in favor of WMP when he's showing signs of coming out of his slump.
2. The Yankees came into town with several key players on the DL. If it took this level of heroics to pull off a sweep in April, there might be cause for concern once the Evil Empire's healthy again.
3. We left 22 men on base and had only one run-scoring hit with men in scoring position, namely Lowell's home run in the 7th. Not good, but at least we still pulled it off.

As of this morning the Sox have won 5 in a row & have the best winning percentage in all of baseball, .706. Beckett leads the majors with 4 wins and Dice-K is 3rd in the majors with 31 K's. Not bad after a 3-game set with the Yankees.

The Jays are in town tonight for a quick two game set starting @ 7:05. We get a repeat of the Ohka vs. Wakefield game we saw in Toronto, and with the Jays on a 5-game slide hopefully it'll have a similar outcome!

The time has come (almost)!

Wow, talk about a hell of a home opener... hard for things to go any better than they did yesterday (Box Score). Beckett went seven innings, threw 83 pitches, struck Ichiro out three times, had 8Ks overall on the day, and let up only two hits, bringing his WHIP down to 0.67 for this ever so young season.

What else... Drew had his first homer, Tek did well towards pulling himself out of his slump, there was an almost brawl that will hopefully continue into today, and the starters were getting pulled by the 5th inning to give the bench players a change to play. All in all a shalacking that I'm sure the Mariners will be looking to reverse tonight.

Today's game is between Dice-K and the "ace" of the Mariners, Felix Hernandez, who struck out 12 in his last start against the A's. Of course that was back on April 2nd, so hopefully things have changed since then... I'm expecting a pitchers duel all the way around tonight, between Matsuzaka will be on point for his first home start and the Sox bats are going to be fairly quiet after all the work they got yesterday. Sometimes a team can use up all of it's offense for a few days in one game, and I have an odd feeling that's what we'll see today.

Beckett and Dice-K's debuts

Well, we're roughly 10 minutes from Dice-K's debut... Don't know who decided this game should be at 2pm, but I've got my brand new radio ready to go to listen from work. Gotta say I'm pretty excited given last night's game. I don't have much time to write about it but Beckett looked good despite not having much control. He didn't get rattled while Lowell was making 2 errors behind him and in several cases he hung in there and got the outs he needed (going from 3-0 to striking that guy out was pretty sweet). I've got high hopes for him this season.

Quick thoughts:

• Lowell's errors were a one time thing, they'll be a little less than half of his total for the season if he puts them out of his mind.
• I'm liking this Ortiz, Ramirez, Drew combo already and Drew's catch in the outfield was NICELY done!
• The pen did a hell of a job last night, let's hope they can keep it up.
• The Pirates swept their opening series?!? Congrats!