Jacoby Ellsbury – 6 for 14 in his return to the line up. (Photo by Keith Allison, c/o Flickr.com)

For the better part of this weekend, I was in enemy territory… the Empire State. Our trip started at 8:30am on Saturday and ended at 3:30pm on Sunday. In total, we spent about 15 hours in the car and about three hours at my sister-in-law’s 40th birthday party! We had fun… even if I did have the misfortune of overhearing some party goers discussing another baseball team… it was all “blah, blah, Yankees…blah, blah 20-something games over .500″ — enough to make me want to vomit into my wine glass. *sigh* Yes, I’m a disgruntled Red Sox fan. I’m not afraid to admit it.

I was pretty excited when we made it home in time to catch the end of the Red Sox game on the MLB Network… Yay! Ooooh, looks like they’re losing. Booo-hiss! From the looks of things, I didn’t miss much of a game. Here are the highlights, or I guess I should call them lowlights since we did take the L.

The good news — Jacoby Ellsbury had two more hits. And Clay Buchholz, just off the DL for a life threatening internal bleed, struck out eight! The bad news — Buchholz also gave up four earned runs which turns out was just enough for the Rays. The Sox bats had a difficult time figuring out David Price and could manage just three runs Saturday night. Rays won 5-3.

Today was a much better day. If you stopped watching after the first inning, you might not agree with me. The Sox put up a run in the first when James Shields walked Daniel Nava and David Ortiz and Adrian Gonzalez smacked a single to drive in Nava.
» Continue reading “Red Sox Take Two of Three From Those Pesky Rays”

Finally, the Red Sox have reached that ever elusive .500 mark this season with a nail-biting 1-0 win over Jake Peavy and the Chicago White Sox. Remember the epic meltdown last Saturday against the Yankees? Me neither. The Red Sox have won six straight since that fateful game and it finally looks like things are falling into place.

Jon Lester got his first win of the season and first win since September 6, 2011. He looked strong in his seven inning outing, allowing no runs on five hits, striking out seven. Vintage Lester if you ask me. And he needed to be spot on last night with Jake Peavy pitching a complete game, despite the loss. Lester loves a good battle.

Jon Lester (c/o Keith Allison, flickr.com)

“Those games are fun. It’s just a battle,” Lester said. “I’ve been on the other end of those. You feel like you do everything you can to put your team in position to win, and the other guy just does a little bit more or you don’t get the timely hitting or whatever. That was big tonight, grinding it out. Our hitters did a great job. Defense played awesome tonight. Those are more or less fun. Every win is important for a pitcher.”

Peavy had just one hiccup in the fourth, giving up a lead off bloop double to right to who else but Ryan Sweeney. Dustin Pedroia lined out and then Adrian Gonzalez followed with a single to right field scoring Sweeney for the only run of the game. Sweeney had two for the four hits raising his average to .391. I’m kinda thinking this Sweeney guy is a real upgrade in right field this year… you know, after enduring five seasons of mediocre play by hangnail- injury-prone JD Drew.

The real scare came in the bottom of the eight when reliever Franklin Morales gave up a one-out single.  Vicente Padilla came in to replace Morales with two outs in the inning and promptly walked Paul Konerko (who had two of the White Sox six hits) putting two men on with two outs. I’m not going to lie, my heart started beating really fast and I almost couldn’t watch. Lucky for us, Alex Rios grounded out to second to end the threat.

Alfredo Aceves came in for the save in the ninth and pitched a 1-2-3 inning striking out A.J. Pierzynski to end the game. I held my breath through that whole inning. I think Bobby Valentine did too.

“He was great,” Valentine said. “You know, we talked to him that he doesn’t always have to throw it 97 [mph]. Tonight, he threw some very effective fastballs at 94, 93, and then had his 96, 97. He pitched. He got the final strikeout with a changeup. That’s what you have to do.”

It’s a relief to see this bullpen start to put together some solid outings. Since last Saturday, the Red Sox ‘pen has given up just one run in 15.2 innings. I’m impressed. Let’s just hope they can keep this up.

Click here for the box, courtesy of the Red Sox. They close out their series with the White Sox today with Josh Beckett taking the mound. First pitch is at 2:10 EST.