Mixing It Up

Sometimes, when you're in a rut, you need to change things. Some people get a new haircut, eat at a new restaurant. If you live in Hollywood, you swap out your spouse.

But if you're Tito Francona and your baseball team is looking listless at the plate, you change the lineup. So yesterday we got to see Dustin hit leadoff with Drew following and Ellsbury drop to eighth. The result was an 8-2 thrashing of the Blue Jays, assisted in no little part by Jon Lester's commanding performance.

If there was one drawback to Lester's outing on Sunday, it was that he needed 115 pitches to get through six innings. However, that is more than mitigated by his numbers; 6.0 innings, one run, three hits and 12 strikeouts. Yes, you read that right: 12 strikeouts. The last left-hander the Sox had put up more strikeouts than that was Bruce Hurst, who fanned 14 against the A's in 1987*. Hopefully, this represents the upswing for Lester. Last year he struggled similarly through the beginning of the season before going 13-3 the rest of the way. If this is a similar situation for Lester, he's ready to start being a dominant pitcher again.

The bullpen found its legs again. Justin Masterson gave two good innings and surrendered just one run to Alex Rios, who must have dealt with the Devil to gain mastery over the Boston pitching staff. And Ramon Ramirez got a little confidence back with a solid ninth. It was not an easy road trip for the bullpen, but they ended on a solid note.

But the big story was the new lineup. In Boston (as in New York), every little change in the team is dissected a thousand different ways by a thousand different people. It's like a bunch of shamans trying to find meaning in a pile of chicken bones. So everyone obsessed over the lineup when all it really entailed was dropping Ellsbury into eighth.

Sometimes, the little changes have big payoffs. Mighty Mite went 1-4 with a three-run homer in the fourth. Youk went 2-4 with a walk, three runs scored and 2 RBI. Even Ortiz got a hit and scored a run to boot! I still think he needs to be benched, but it was a nice change of pace. And Jason Bay went 2-3 with his 15th homer of the year. Just another day at the office for Bay.

If there was one negative about the lineup, it would be Nick Green's baserunning. Getting caught stealing and getting picked off of first is just...bad. There has to be some kind of squad "fine" for that, right? 20 bucks in the jar sounds good. Still, rather see him that Lugo at short.

Today is an off day for the Sox as they travel to Detroit to wrap up this road-trip. The win-free Daisuke takes on Rick Porcello. Porcello is, of course, a rookie the Sox will be seeing for the first time. What does this make, about 90 new pitchers the Sox have seen so far in 2009? This one is putting up some ROY-worthy numbers so far; 6-3 with a 3.48 ERA. He was considered one of the best prospects in the game and why that was is pretty clear. So Daisuke is going to have to step up lik Lester did yesterday. Hopefully Daisuke can avoid "The Inning of Death" and put together a solid outing.

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* Yes, I saw that game. Yes, I am that old. Hurst out-dueled Dave Stewart that day. Shame the Roid Rocket could never master that particular trick...