Recent Downfalls

Everyone was ready to crown ourselves as 2008 champions after taking 10 of 11 games, but now that we lose five straight, the sky is falling. im not trying to pick on you drab, but I think you’re overreacting. Beckett and Buccholz dominated the last two games, but the offense couldn’t come through. The other 3 games were all lost by two or less.
It’s just been an unlucky week. Our starting pitchers are some of the best in the league, and our offense has produced consistently – with a couple exceptions. My one complaint is our bullpen’s inability to give up less than a few runs at the end of a game. I see some ERAs that are too high for comfort. Other than that, I think we’re ok. We have a day off, and then a home stretch at fenway. Go Sox

we’ll come back, i guarentee it. we are just injured and the (expletive) flu is going around, but our starting pitching is excellent. Buch took a 1-hitter into the eighth inning, and Beckett was dominant, by K’s surprisingly. Our run total in the series was 5 runs, 4 coming in the first game. Just admit all the Rays pitching was better than ours COUGH bullpen COUGH . We finally have a day off, and remember that was the end of a 20-game streak. We just ran out of gas amid the injuries, flu, and just being tired. Lugo seemed to have a billion errors, but Lowrie is almost ready to be a regular starter. We lost Tek, Lowell, Papi, and Casey, and everyone else seemed to be inconsistent this series.

I believe the problem is too many momentum killers that are discouraging the very, very good players we otherwise have. The mid-level length relief pitching, as typified by Del Carmen and Timlin, is sucking the momentum away because you need to score 8 runs to win with these guys pitching. Lugo kills any rally with his incessant and predictable ground balls for DPs or his clutch strikeouts. He has been doing this now for well over a year now. Why is he still around?? Now Drew is sinking back into his last year bad habits, but some of this may be his reaction to the momentum suckers as I do think he has potential!

Again, I mainly blame mid-length relief and Lugo. Management better deal with these 2 areas and soon, or this may end up like the 2006 season. If things don’t change and soon, I may be looking to sell my Seattle-Sox game tickets in Seattle in July. I don’t want to see another Seattle sweep like I did in 2006!

1) Beckett is healthy.
2) Dice-K looks better than 07 (maybe a little early)
3) Buchholz faced the Yankees and rebounded for a great week.
4) Okie still has it.
5) Paps is unhittable.
6) Aardsma has been better than I thought.
7) Masterson is legit or will be legit when he gets up OR great trade bait.
8) Coco can still be moved.
9) Lowrie is solid and could also be trade bait.
10) Its still early and the Sox are not the Yankees (injuries and young pitchers), Detriot (horrible pitching), and the Indians (cannot get out of their own way.).
11) We still have Josh Beckett and the Angels, Tigers, Indians, Yankees, Mariners, White Sox, do not. So we still win in the playoffs.

All in all we look pretty good for a team without Mike Lowell and a completely healthy starting staff.

But we lost all these games more because of bad luck and injuries than because of that. But we do not have a reliable bullpen, other than Paps and Oki (MDC can be great some games, and just plain awful in other games).

What pisses me off is that we wasted 2 great starts. Masterson should have gotten a W. Same with Buch…

if it does not get better soon, I am sure we will either move someone or bring someone up and give them a try.

I have to GameDay most of my Red Sox games, so this is more of a question, but would Hansen help the pen? I didn’t see his recent outing. I know he might implode, but that doesn’t necessarily make him any worse than Timlin.