Awakening Colossus

Be very wary, fellow denizens of the AL East. For the Boston Red Sox may have found their bats. And for you, that is a very bad thing indeed.

Yesterday's 12-1 shellacking of the Orioles completed a four-game sweep of Baltimore. Boston is now 7-6, above .500 for the first time since Opening Day. And in case you were curious, that is just one game off of where the Sox were in 2007.

The attack yesterday was led by the Boston bats. Only two starters failed to get a hit; Rocco Baldelli (who's first at-bat resulted in getting to third on an error and pulling his hamstring) and Nick Green. The top of the lineup, which has been killing the Sox, pulled a 180 and just crushed the ball all day long. Ellsbury, Pedroia and Papi went a combined 9-16 with seven runs scored and six RBI. Then there is Youk, who is getting the royal treatment...lots of walks.

Youk went 1-2 yesterday because of three walks. The Baltimore pitchers were afraid to give him anything to work with. He's sporting a Williams-esque .469 batting average. His OPS is a ludicrous 1.335, which seems like one of those imaginary numbers used by mathematicians. If he isn't the Player of the Month for April they should stop handing out the award.

Let's give a nod to the captain as well. 'Tek is batting .250 but has an OPS over .900 so far. He is providing some production from the bottom of the order. If he can just be the 'Tek of 2004 or even 2007, the Sox will be that much better off.

Yesterday was a display as well of the depth Boston has in their pitching. Justin Masterson came out of the bullpen to take the place of the injured Daisuke Matsuzaka. In 5.1 innings of work, he gave up just one run on four hits in what was, to that point, a relatively close game. Tito wisely pulled him after a little more than 80 pitches and relied on his deep 'pen to finish the job. That is exactly what happened; the Delcarmen-Okajima-Lopez combo got the Sox to the ninth. By that time, the Sox were well ahead and they brought AAA call-up Hunter Jones in to finish the game.

The was the Red Sox at their best, using their potent bats and pitching depth to great effect. They haven't really been able to get both working at the same time. But over this four-game stretch with Baltimore, the pieces finally seem to be meshing. Their win streak now stands at five games. If they can just keep playing at this level, which frankly isn't any kind of super-human achievement, Boston should be able to catch up to a Toronto team that is playing out of their minds right now and take over first.

First Pitch Strikes

Masterson faced 21 batters yesterday and was able to get a first pitch strike/out on 14 of them. That's a titch better than 66%, which is just fantastic. That kind of control allows Boston to hold a slender lead until their bats get into gear, which is exactly what happened yesterday.

Next Game

April 21/ Home against Minnesota/ Wakefield vs. Baker/ 7:10 PM