Did you miss me? You know you did...
After an unexpectedly atrocious start, punctuated by injuries to Jed Lowrie and Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Red Sox have bounced back nicely. They have won their last four games, including a three game sweep of the Orioles at Fenway. And the 2-1 win over the O's today was maybe the most important one.
Jon Lester, after two poor starts, bounced back today and threw a gem. He allowed four hits (all singles) over seven innings of shutout ball, walked two and struck out nine. He was getting ground ball outs and really locating his pitches. This is how the Sox are supposed to work; they ride pitching and defense to victories.
That's a good thing, because the only reliable bat in Boston's lineup is Youk's. Today was another day of quiet offensive power. Just six hits were garnered all day by Boston. Encouragingly, three of them came from the top of the lineup between Ellsbury and Pedroia. But the offensive slump of Big Papi is now a major concern. His average is .170 and his OPS of .446 is just pathetic. Unless he can turn this around, the comparisons to Mo Vaughan are going to multiply. And the calls for Chris Carter to get a shot in the lineup will grow louder.
And overall, there is only one starter batting over .300; the aforementioned Kevin Youkilis, who appears to be the only batter that decided it would be a good idea to continue in 2009 where he left off in 2008. There has to be some improvement in the lineup for the Sox to build on this win streak, which currently stands at four.
The pitching has been up and down in the rotation. But the bullpen moves have been pretty solid. And the trade of Coco Crisp to KC for Ramon Ramirez has been paying off big-time for Boston. Yesterday he threw a perfect eighth inning in relief. Overall this year Ramirez has thrown 8.1 innings and allowed zero runs. His WHIP is a minuscule 0.48 thus far. Did I mention he is only 27 years old?
First Pitch Strikes
Bit of a statistical oddity. Out of 26 batters faced, Lester split down the middle between first pitch strikes/outs and first pitch balls/hits with 13 each. Usually the other team can turn that into some runs on the board, but Lester shut them down for his seven innings. A really gutsy performance for Jon Lester yesterday.
Next Game
April 20/ Home against Baltimore/ Masterson vs. Hendrickson/ 11:05 AM
2 comments:
Yeah, the wOes always seem to be able to cure whatever ails you guys. I just wished they'd lay down like dogs for the Yankees like they do for the Sox.
Lay down? We dominated those poor suckers...
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