Walking Wounded

So just how many Boston starters can get injured on one road trip? It's great that Lester manhandled the Giants yesterday, outdueling Tim Lincecum with a brilliant complete game win. Lester allowed just one run on five hits to propel Boston to a 5-1 win, giving Boston three wins in their last four games and a .500 record on this road trip.

But the injury bug is getting a little ridiculous here. First Pedroia, then Buchholz and now Victor Martinez. V-Mart fractured his thumb on Sunday, making San Francisco the most dangerous place in the world for a Red Sox player this side of Afghanistan. And while Buchholz may miss just one start, Pedroia and Martinez could be out for an extended period of time. Those are two critical positions where Boston doesn't have a lot of depth. Playing Bill Hall and Tek every day is a very short-term answer. Very short term.

But the Sox get a day off before they return to Boston. I would guess they'll use it to decide what they need to do to cover these positions. We would have seen Dusty Brown or Mark Wagner come up as backup for Tek...but they're on the DL as well. So who knows who the Sox will bring up. I guess we could see Tug Hulett come up from the Bucket to help out at second unless the brass thinks Angel Sanchez can handle it. But are any of these legitimate options if Pedey or V-Mart are out for weeks? Or does Boston have to start looking at trade scenarios so they don't lose the ground they just made up in the AL East?

Walking To A Win

Well, last night's game did nothing to argue against the reputation Al East games have for being long. The first two innings in Boston's 7-6 win over Toronto took over an hour and twenty minutes thanks to control problems from both starting pitchers. But at the end of the day, Boston's pitching was better by just enough to grab the "W".

Swept Away

It didn't look good at the beginning of yesterday's 11-6 win over the Angels. Daisuke had gotten the pattern exactly backwards, having his worst inning right off the bat. Putting the Sox in 4-0 hole to start the game...I thought he was done. But then, somehow, the old Daisuke reasserted itself and that led to Boston improbably sweeping the Angels in a four-game set and laying the stage for a huge weekend series with the Yankees.

Did Somebody Say McDonald?

Well, I was right about the Sox needing to mix things up. I was also right about Reddick being a part of it. En route to Boston's comeback 7-6 win over Texas, Reddick's two-run double in the sixth cut the deficit to 6-4.

What I didn't see coming, what no one saw coming, was a 31-year-old journeyman Triple-A lifer, a former first round pick who never quite made it, coming in to pinch-hit and possibly stopping Boston's slide.