With Ramirez enjoying his latest outburst against his favorite foe, New York reliever Kyle Farnsworth threw a 97 mph fastball behind the slugger's neck on the first pitch of the seventh inning, drawing cheers from the sellout crowd of 55,088.

"It just slipped. I was trying to be aggressive and go in on him," Farnsworth said.

Boston manager Terry Francona said "it's just part of the game,"

All right. Am I the only one who found DP to be the most reasonable individual about tonight's near-misshit?

"He throws 100 mph. That's career-ending if it hits him," Boston's Dustin Pedroia said.

As you might imagine, I was not impressed by that BS this evening. I think it was intentional. I don't know that I'm right about that, and I'll never know. But I'll say this. If you're "trying to be aggressive", you better be damn sure you can control what you're throwing. I could understand and better dismiss an actual hit on his thigh, back, or ribs or something. And on the 25-man roster of the Yankees, there's no player with less credibility in my book than Kyle L. Farnsworth. I'm not the kind of Sox fan who thinks everything the Yankees do is dirty, but this just pissed me off to all hell.

...moving on.

via www.fangraphs.com

Summary:

Too bad this episode had to sour (for me) an otherwise sweet victory. Vintage Becks, though not quite a "Vintage Papelbon Performance". A 4-run lead with Giambi-Posada-Cano in order? Oki would have sufficed, and has actually thrown a 1/3 less total innings than Paps to this point. The key, for Becks at least, was being the kind of pitcher who can throw multiple strikes to a single hitter (were you watching, Jon Lester?).

"Being" is one bad MF. He took care of business like we needed him to tonight, with two HRs off of personal whipping boy Mike Mussina. Jacoby "Slowpoke" Ellsbury was able to take 2 bases tonight, with a bonus base on a Chad Moeller throwing error. JD Drew continues to just make good things happen at the plate. 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI. That's what I like to see out of my completely non-disappointing RF. Youks, DP and El Capitan all had 2 hits apiece as well.

Player of the Game:

via d.yimg.com

Comment of the Game:

Sorry, kids. No one in the gamethread beat Becks today. On Manny:

"He's pretty good, huh?" Beckett said. "Hopefully, he'll invite me to his Hall of Fame speech."

Next up: Four at home against the Rangers. Daisuke, Lester, Wake and Buch for us. Kason makes his first appearance as an opposing starter: Mendoza, Jennings, Millwood, Gabbard. 

via d.yimg.com

Chien-Ming Wang made the Red Sox his whipping boys last night.

I always give credit where credit is due. The player that deserves the only credit from last night is Wang who shut down the Sox to the tune of just 2 hits and one run over 9 innings of work.

Wang has a strong arsenal of pitches, but usually not everything of his is on. Last night, everything was on. The most impressive thing may have been his fastball which hit 95 consistently. Sox batters didn't look ready for that.

Unfortunately, Clay Buchholz goes completely overlooked but he handled the Yankees lineup pretty well last night. His curveball was on and he painted the corners for most of the night. Buchholz ended up throwing 99 pitches over 6 innings, but only surrendered one run. He walked 3 and struck out 3.

The offense obviously wasn't there last night. But the man that stepped up -- AGAIN -- was JD Drew. Drew hit a dinger in the fifth inning to finally put the Sox on the board. Coco Crisp had the only other hit for the Sox.

I'm not really worried about the offense. I'm more worried about the bullpen. Mike Timlin let this game get out of hand in his first outing of the season. Timlin gave up 2 runs and only recorded one out.

Timlin looks like he doesn't have much left. I think he'll battle it out through the rest of the season, but I can't see him pitching in 2009. His tank is running on empty and I think we saw a glimer of that last night.

Hideki Okajima looked good, but only worked two batters. Javier Lopez came in, struggled, but didn't give up a run. Then my bullpen sleeper Mr. David Aardsma came in to keep it close. He surrendered a run, but he was throwing heat and got the last 4 outs for the Sox. Aardsma could develop into the Sox's 7th inning guy.

Sox look for revenge today at 3.

Comment of the Game:

"Chein Mein has no wang" - BoSox415 (Had to use this one...)

P.S. Sean Casey looked pretty good last night...

via www.fangraphs.com

Summary:

You know, it's tough to start a long winning streak. Have to give credit: Nate Robertson was excellent through the first 3. He mowed down the Sox, and racked up the strikeouts in the process. Made the Sox look silly, and not just David Ortiz. Wake was not so much in control. He was wild from the get-go, and never really got it under control. He needed 108 pitches to get through 5 innings, and we're probably pretty lucky he didn't need more.

The Tigers scored 2 in the 4th, and it felt over, at least for me. The Sox had looked...impotent in the first few innings and I wasn't sure the situation was going to get better. One man decided he'd had enough. Who decided that? You guessed it. Frank Stallone. J.D. Drew. Drew knocked in the first run, and scored the third on the way to a four-run 4th inning. 

After a scoreless 5th and 6th from both teams, the Tigers got a solo HR from Magglio Ordonez to make the score 4-3.  One-run games are annoying, just as a side note. Apparently the Sox agree with me, as Manny Ramirez ended up in an epic battle with Zach Miner after both DP and Papi reached on walks. "Being" won, of course, and knocked both in with a 2B. 6-3. If you can believe it, J.D. Drew ended up being in the middle of another Sox rally, getting the intentional respect walk, and scored on a Mayor McSpeed single, along with Tacoby Bellsbury. 8-3.

Comfortable, right? A four-run lead? Excellent. No. Not really. In comes Julian Tavarez to make his best attempt at ruining your evening. Two truckfuls of napalm and a six-three Julio Lugo double play later, and the score was 8-6 and the Sox needed Paps to come in and save the day. Thankfully, he brought his kick A game and got down to business. But the Sox, it seemed, were still not comfortable.

The 9th 8th inning saw Tigers' manager Jim Leyland call upon Yorman Bazardo, who gave his best effort at not being outcrappitched by Julian Tavarez. Thankfully for us, he succeeded. Youks (2), Drew, and McSpeed all knocked in runs in the 9th to make the final 12-6. Paps threw a more interesting 9th than usual, but brought us home happy all the same. .500 again!

Player of the Game:

via d.yimg.com

The player of the game is Drew. The picture's not from today, but I really enjoyed this one from the home opener with him brushing off "Being"'s uniform. 

Comment of the Game:

He's a knuckle-newbie - It's gotta be one of Cabrera's first - if not the first - appearance against Wake. -soxaholic

courtesy of www.fangraphs.com

Summary:

The Sox, seemingly, had this one well in-hand early. Daisuke cruised through the first few innings, and the Sox would score the first (and the only one they needed) run in the second inning. Kenny Rogers was off, but also inefficient. 

Daisuke, MDC, and Oki would combine to shut out the Tigers over 9 innings, limiting the Tigers to just 9 baserunners and striking out 11. It was an excellent, and yet somewhat understated collective pitching performance, aside from the Lesterized sixth inning from Matsuzaka. 

Lowell and Papi were the only two Sox who did not get hits, and both walked twice in the game. Coco, to the surprise of some, was able to knock in the first run on a sacrifice fly. Youks went 3-3 with two walks, while DP, Lugo, and Tek all reached base twice apiece. "Being" had an interesting triple, which ended with him crossing the plate on Placido Polanco's first error since leaving the womb. Miguel Cabrera was not GG-material at 3B today either. 

Oh yeah. If you're a fan of the Sox, and judging by your perusal of this website you are, the Sox received their WS rings today. 

via d.yimg.com

That's, of course, Pesky with Wake.

Player of the Game:

via d.yimg.com

Gotta be Daisuke. He took care of business today, striking out 7 and allowing 8 baserunners over 6 2/3. 

Comment of the Game:

Grilli's thrown 40 pitches,

courtesy of www.fangraphs.com

I forgot how much harder these are to write when we lose, after the positive-fest that was Game 4. Sure, we had missed opportunities, but we cashed in later, and Jon Lester was pretty good. Not going to gloss anything over. We haven't played well. Some of the defense thusfar in the series has been questionable at best, on our part. Despite the negative things I might say about us, have to give the lion's share of the credit to the Jays. They've played excellent ball thusfar. I have a feeling, after two straight team losses, that Becks is going to force them to play really well if they want to win tomorrow.

Game 5 Summary:

Wake was solid. Solidly mediocre. We didn't lose because of him, but he wasn't a huge help. It wasn't really until the 6th inning that he got into trouble, but the wheels kind of fell off at that point, with the Jays scoring 3. Surprisingly enough, the Sox answered back on a David Ortiz Manny Ramirez J.D. Drew 3-run HR. My apologies for the mistakes, it just took a couple of times to reconcile that he was the one who came through for us. Thankfully for the Jays, none of Aardsma, Lopez, or MDC had it going, and the trio would combine to allow 3 more runs to make the final score 6-3.

Game 6 Summary:

If you think Game 5 was not enjoyable, you should have seen Game 6. Buch pitched pretty well. Not great, but good enough for his first ML start of the season. 8 baserunners in 5 innings, 7 Ks, and 7 groundouts vs. 0 flyouts. The 3 (earned) runs, plus one unearned, he allowed were enough to give the Jays the win (and Buch the loss), though they certainly didn't stop there. The Sox middle relief this afternoon:

Or, if you prefer, "not good". Kyle Snyder and Bryan Corey "combined" for 2 outs and 6 earned runs. After those two put the game out of reach, Batshit McCracken was able to come in, stop the bleeding, and ensure the game would be a complete embarrassment rather than a complete and total embarrassment.

On the offensive side of the game, we were able to manage 12 baserunners while plating a grand total of two. DP went 2-4 with a BB, JD Drew went 2-4 with a 2B, with both "Being" and Mayor McSpeed knocking in runs.

Player of the Games:

Drew made this decision easy. He was the strongest offensive cog in both games, and none of the pitchers save McCracken warranted much consideration. Nonetheless, nice to see Drewlicious showing the ability to come up with important hits.

Comments of the Games:

i love baseball - Classic JD. He makes you think he has no chance of doing anything, and then.... Boom -Tippecanoe

F*CK -KFC