Sox lose 7-2 to Tigers to fall to 4-5.
I would think the Tigers are very relieved to get their first win of the season. I am, as usual, frustrated with John Lester – 97 pitches in 5 1/3 IP. That just won’t cut it. Admittedly, Bonderman wasn’t that much more efficient – he just escaped his jams.
Bryan Corey does not belong in the bigs. He just won’t be any solution this year.
Sox win 5-0 behind an impressive performance from Dice-K.
108 pitches from Dice-K in 6 2/3 innings. 4 hits, 4 walks and 7 Ks. Clearly a very good outing against an allegedly fearsome offense that has only been able to score a total of 15 runs in their first 7 games. Not that fearsome.
Anyway, Dice-K looked very good. He mixed up his pitches well and seemed to have the Tigers baffled. He didn’t leave many balls over the plate and was very confident. If this continues, Dice-K is going to have a very good year.
In terms of offense, Youk and Pedroia keep getting on base, Manny smashed a triple that was fun to watch – this time he didn’t admire his blast but busted around first and chugged to third. He was lucky that Polanco made an errant throw (I think this was Polanco’s first error since 2006) or he likely would have been out at third.
The opening ceremonies were the usual fare. The “surprise” guest for the first pitch was Bill Buckner, who was very emotional walking in from the Green Monster and while on the mound. He made one of the best first pitches I’ve seen and one of my All-Time favorite players, Dwight Evans, caught the pitch. I thought Buckner had been back before, but clearly not in this manner. I hope it makes up for all the grief he caught for his game 6 error. There were others who should have caught more of the blame for that meltdown.
Today’s game is Bonderman v. Lester.
Interesting Fact of the Day
Edgar Renteria has 1,940 hits in his 12 year career. I was surprised to find this out. He is 32 years old and has never had a 200 hit season, so it looks like he may not have a shot at 3,000 hits. His one year in Boston was not good to him, but I’ve always thought that he seemed like a very nice guy and solid ball player.
Minors Update
AAA Pawtucket
Chris Smith went 4 innings last night for the Pawsox. He allowed 2 hits, issued 1 walk and struck out 7 in his 75 pitch stint.
AA Portland
Justin Masterson’s second start of the season went very well – 5 IP, 2H, 0BB, 7 Ks. Dominant. He may be on his way to Pawtucket pretty soon.
Jays outpitch Sox to take series opener 6-3.
First off, I don’t like the Jays retro baby blue uniforms; never did, never will. Now that that fashion comment is out of the way, onto the game.
This was quite a pitching duel through 6 innings before each team managed to push 3 runs across the plate in the next two half innings – the Jays in the bottom of the sixth and the Sox in the top of the sixth. Really, though the story was (1) Shaun Marcum and (2) the Toronto bullpen vs. the Boston pitching of Aardsma, Lopez and Delcarmen.
Marcum was fantastic. He doesn’t have the lights out fastball, but he does have control, a good mix of pitches, and the ability to change speeds. He was on last night and seems to have picked up where he left off last year. It was really something to watch, the way he used both sides of the plate and kept batters off kilter the whole night by changing speed and mixing up his pitches. He was good.
The Sox pen did not get the job done. In the top of the 7th JD Drew tied the game with a three run blast off Marcum. Marcum had fooled JD all night long until he left a 85 MPH fastball just a bit over the plate and JD smacked it into the right field stands. Aardsma then came on to start the 7th and walked Eckstein after an 11 pitch struggle. Eckstein fouled off 4 straight 95 MPH fastballs until Aardsma missed high.
Lopez was brought in to face Stairs but the Jays countered with Shannon Stewart who drilled a line drive past Pedroia into center. This brought on Delcarmen. This makes one think that Tito messed up. If Lopez left after Stewart because Rios was up, why even use Lopez but replace him with Delcarmen for Stewart. Call me crazy, but I just don’t like Lopez against righties. But then I looked at the numbers and was a bit surprised. Here is Lopez’s platoon split for 2007:
Why do we think Lopez is a lefty killer? Perhaps it is because 2007 may have been an aberration. Here are th stats for 2004-2006:
2004
2005
2006
This is really puzzling. Lopez used to get killed by righties but in the last two years it is lefties who have hit him better. I wonder what deeper analysis the Red Sox have done on this – Bill James must have something interesting to say about this. Anyway, I take back my comment about Tito, maybe he did know what he was doing keeping Lopez in against Stewart. Stewart had never faced Lopez before and Stairs was 1 for 2 with a double. Maybe Tito thought Lopez’s sidewinder deliver would throw Stewart. Whatever the thinking, it didn’t work – Stewart laced the 4th pitch for a single.
Delcarmen came on and got Rios and Wells to pop up. Things were looking good until big old Frank Thomas smoked what looked like a change up that Manny left over the middle of the plate for a 2 run double. And, that was really the game. Toronto’s pen allowed only 1 single over the next two innings. A nice ball game, but one that went the wrong way.
Toronto’s offense is not that scary, but the Jays pitching is going to be tough if Marcum continues to pitch like this and Burnett can stay healthy.
Minor League Update
AAA Pawtucket – rained out
AA Portland – rained out
A Adv Lancaster – 1B Prospect Lars Anderson is 2-9 to start the season with 1 walk and 1 strikeout; last year he finished up the last 10 games in Lancaster at .344/.489/.486 with 1 HR and 2 2Bs in 35 at bats.
A Greenville – rained out
Interesting stat of the day
Youkilis broke the 1B errorless mark on Wednesday; he is at 195 now. Youk’s streak started after an error in Tampa Bay on July 4, 2006. Since then he has handled 1640 chances – 60 shy of the MLB 1B errorless chance record set by Stuffy McInnis from 1921-1922. Go Youk!
Next game – 4.5.08
Buchholz v. Litsch
Sox win 5-0 to go to 3-1.
What can I say, John Lester was masterful and Big Papi did his thing with a 2-run shot in the 7th off Alan Embree. Embree tried to throw a puny 84 mph fastball by the Man, and Big Papi told him to “Get that cheese outta here!”
Later on Varitek took Huston Street deep for his first homer of the season – this one the umps could not get wrong. Huston Street has looked very mediocre so far; Billy Beane must be lamenting the drop in Street’s trade value due to these first two outings.
Lester was so unlike his first start. In this one he went 6 2/3 with 3 hits, 3 walks and 3 Ks on 94 pitches. At the start of the game he got ahead of batters (he threw a first pitch strike to five of the first seven guys he faced) and pitched with a great deal of confidence. He looked like a different pitcher to me. It was nice to see. I still don’t think he is out of the woods yet, but this was a more promising outing.
No game for the Sox on the 3rd. Next up is a trip to Toronto.
Wakefield takes on Shaun Marcum.
Game 5 Interesting Stat:
Justin Masterson starts the opener for AA Portland.
Bartolo Colon starts the opener for AAA Pawtucket.
The final game in the Tokyo series went to the A’s 5-1. Rich Harden was superb. His line was 6 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 9 Ks, 1 ER. The run he gave up was a monster blast to Manny. But, apart from that, Harden was in control, and the A’s pen also looked pretty sharp with a nice appearance from Santiago Casilla.
My first post of this new blog. The goal of this blog is to record my thoughts and memories about the Sox, the games, and baseball in general. Onward …
6-5 Sox in 10.
This was a nice comeback win the for Sox and a great way to start the season. The A’s must be very frustrated; my friend Dennis is an A’s fan – I feel his pain. The A’s deserved to win this game but for their stud closer’s implosion.
Rich Harden takes on John Lester tomorrow. If Harden is healthy he is a tough pitcher. Let’s see if Lester can get to the 5th inning with fewer than 100 pitches. I am not very hopeful about this, unless Lester has changed his erratic ways. His two post-season outings, while amazing, have not convinced me that his control is better and his ability to throw first pitch strikes has improved.
