Entries Tagged 'Wakefield' ↓

The Sox are just having the worst time on the road this year. In the current trip, they’re 1 and 5 with no signs of life. Hopefully Baltimore will be the right place at the right time?

Having had to travel all night probably wasn’t too pretty, but the Sox do get an off-day today as they prepare for a four-game series against the Birds in Fenway South.

Manny is still stuck on 499, joking  with reporters last night that he didn’t want to hit #500 in Seattle because the press conference would be too late and it would delay them getting to Baltimore. Okay, sure. Although, Wake would have probably not minded since he took the shutout loss (1 to nothing on the wing of Bedard).

Speaking of Bedard: This is the FIRST time I’ve seen Bedard act anything close to “Ace” status since the deal the Mariners did in the Spring for five players. Baltimore has had more accumulative success with their received players than that of the young lefty. I’m sure Seattle is hoping that last night is the beginning of something great and not a one-time event.

So! The Sox fall to 1.5 games behind… ugh… the Rays… and may lose Dice-K depending on how the MRI comes out today. We’ll see…

Yesterday afternoon’s game was filled with some great “stoopit” trivia stuff. As pointed out by Boston.com:

• Kevin Youkilis has broken the record for consecutive games without an error by a first baseman (194)
•  Jon Lester is the first left-handed Sox starter to record a win in Oakland since 1995.
• Terry Francona still misses chew. (Yes, I made that one up, but I guarantee you he does.)

It’s not a bad thing to take care of Oakland, regardless of their 1 and 2 starters. They needed to walk out of there with the series win and give the fans a nice start to the season.

With J. D. Drew starting last night, the team finally felt a little like normal, I suppose. Tomorrow night, Tim Wakefield gets the start in Toronto’s home opener and Kevin Cash will begin the campaign to prove he’s not Mirabelli.

First homers for Papi and ‘Tek felt good as well. Nice to see it starting to become a “regular” season.

I think it’s time for Boston to introduce a six man rotation.

Dice-K was used to pitching on five days rest in Japan. Curt isn’t getting any younger and last year’s numbers weren’t very Schilling-like. Wake is still a workhorse, but could certainly benefit from an extra day off.

How about this: Francona introduces a six man rotation through the All-Star break and then takes a look at the numbers?

It’s the Transformer interstitial that drives me crazy, not the “Cleveland Rocks” song playing every 45 seconds.

Even with a back-to-back-to-back home run derby, the Sox can’t collect ANY more offense… What a waste of talent. During the regular season they hit .278 as a team. That was 5th best in the AL. This post season? Don’t want to think about it, but I would guess it’s around .220 or slightly lower.

Here are my questions so far:

1. Why not Ellsbury in right? You have a righty on the mound and he could do some damage.
2. Why go through even ONE more batter with Wake? Even though Delcarmen gave up the home run, it was time to pull Wake the minute they realized he was going up in the zone.
3. Why not pinch hit for Mirabelli? Wake is out of the game — go get ‘Tek.
4. What the hell do you do for an encore after three straight losses? Their backs are to the wall.

It’s not looking good, but then again, it didn’t look good in NY in ‘04. Can they do it again? Maybe those home runs were what they needed…

GAME 4 PREVIEW

Jacobs Field, Tuesday, October 16, 2007 — 8:07 PM, EST (FOX Television)

Wakefield (0-0)- vs. Paul Byrd (0-0)

Is Byrd the word, or will the slightly humid wind off the lake help Wake?

This game, after last night’s hideous defeat, will do wonders for the Red Sox if they win it. They must win this game if they want to mentally stay in tune. Tonight’s game is going to be a strange and too close to call one if Wake is in good form. With the Red Sox, it’ll be swing early (yes, early) since Byrd tends to throw a lot of first-pitch strikes. He’s aggressive and he has a Bugs Bunny windup that he’s not afraid to look Daffy using.

More help from the bottom of the order wouldn’t suck, either, since they need to be on base if we’re going to get Byrd off his rhythm.

Let’s go, Sox. You only have a couple more games you can lose. Let’s not.