A Good Start

Well, you can't complain about too much for one game when your team posts 17 runs. Even if they did get sloppy in the ninth. But compared to the last series, it was a joy to watch the Sox beat up on the Angels 17-8 and begin this critical homestand with a resounding win. Whatever was said in that pre-game meeting was epic.



Every Boston starter had at least one hit and five of them had two or more. Every Boston starter scored at least one run and, again, five of them had two or more. Seven of the nine starters had at least one RBI; only Scutaro and V-Mart missed out on the fun.

And even with all that hitting and scoring, some performances stood out. JD Drew had a great game, going 4-5 with three RBI and two runs scored. I give him a lot of grief because he doesn't play to his potential/ability all the time and he's paid a ton to do just that. But he came through tonight and has for the past week. In his last six games Drew is hitting .304 with a 1.190 OPS. It would be great if he would keep playing like this.

Adrian Beltre is continuing to swing a hot bat. He went 2-5 with three runs scored and three RBI. He is batting .333 with an .805 OPS and notched his first homer, a two-run shot in the sixth with one out. That helps to mitigate his fielding, which has been somewhat disappointing. Beltre already has six errors on the year, which is not what the Sox were expecting from him.

Clay Buchholz's pitching wasn't great today, but it was enough to get the Sox in a position to win. Clay went 5.2 innings and gave up four runs on eight hits, walked three and struck out two. Not great, but enough. What was impressive was Delcarmen's 1.1 innings of relief. He went 1.1 scoreless innings and didn't allow anyone to reach base. His ERA is now 1.42 and his whip is a minuscule 0.71 on the year. Even Ramon Ramirez pitched well with a clean eighth inning. And sure, Schoenweis gave up four runs in the ninth, but by then the game was beyond out of reach. Although you have to wonder if Embree should have stayed up instead...that was an ugly inning.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is that Boston got their homestand off to a great start. Hopefully that will continue tomorrow when Lester goes against Ervin Santana. Lester got off on the wrong foot but hasn't allowed a run in his last two starts. But Boston has done this before; played well only to fall apart the next day. If they can follow this resounding win with another one, Boston fans may actually allow themselves to start being optimistic once again.