Hey Rays, Get Out Of Our City!

I already posted my love letter to the Tampa Bay Rays last night so I'm not going to write any more unnecessary platitudes and slurping.

There's no need to dress anything up when Tampa Bay (85-67) closed out its season series with the Boston Red Sox (87-65) this afternoon at Fenway Park with a 8-5 win.

The victory propelled the Rays to a 12-6 advantage over the Red Sox this season and most importantly, it put Tampa Bay just two games behind Boston with 10 games left in the 2011 regular season. If necessary, Game 163 would be at the Trop next week.

If you can think of something nice to say about a team that lost six of its last seven against a divisional foe, including a four-game sweep this weekend at home, I'd like to hear it. To say the Red Sox are struggling is the understatement of the month. A split of the four games probably would have buried the Rays but now, Boston has to fight until the end of the regular season.

David Price didn't figure into the decision as he left after four innings (he was hit in the chest by a line drive). He allowed two earned runs on three hits with three walks and two strikeouts.

As expected, Tim Wakefield (7-7) was no match for Price or Tampa Bay. Career win No. 201 had to wait as he went five fruitless innings. He allowed six runs (two earned) on six hits with a walk and five strikeouts. Two throwing errors by third baseman Mike Aviles proved to be particularly costly.

Tampa Bay took any intrigue out of it early on an NFL Sunday and we'll thank them for that since the Patriots were playing at 4:15 p.m. Johnny Damon had an RBI double, Matt Joyce (3 hits, 3 RBIs) had an RBI single and Desmond Jennings (2 hits) had an RBI single all in the second inning.

Sean Rodriguez's sacrifice fly in the fourth made it 4-0 before Darnell McDonald got Boston on the board in the frame with a two-run double.

Things got sloppy in the fifth (a trend in Boston's death spiral) as Jennings scored on Jarrod Saltalamacchia's passed ball and Evan Longoria scored on Aviles' error.

Joyce's two-run single in the seventh put it out of reach at 8-2 in favor of Tampa Bay.

Aviles (2 hits) had a great series as he added a three-run bomb (his seventh of the season) in the seventh.

Joel Peralta got four outs (what a concept) to record his fifth save and his second in the last two contests.

So it's all come down to this: 10 more games to decide who gets the AL Wild Card. While the Rays are playing so much better at the moment, the Red Sox do have a distinct advantage schedule-wise.

Boston has four more games at home against the Orioles, three against the Yankees next weekend in the Bronx and then closes with three against Baltimore in Camden Yards. Tampa Bay has four in New York followed by three at home against Toronto and they end with three at the Trop vs. New York.

No rest for the weary as the Red Sox have a day-night doubleheader tomorrow with the O's. Kyle Weiland takes on Jeremy Guthrie at 1:05 p.m. and John Lackey faces Brian Matusz at 7:10 p.m. Two awful matchups in a season that is quickly dissolving into a complete debacle.

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Every Thing Goes Boston's Way As They Leave Kansas City With A Series Win

I'm going to venture a prediction that all these things never happen again in the same Major League baseball contest: Darnell McDonald collected three hits (including a homer), Jason Varitek hit a triple, Ryan Lavarnway had two hits and Carl Crawford hit a homer.



The reason that we watch a Red Sox-Royals game in late August is that crazy stuff like that can all transpire in the span of nine innings.



Boston (77-49) beat Kansas City (52-76) 6-1 this afternoon at Kaufmann Stadium, taking the series 3-1 thanks to Jon Lester's brilliance and all the aforementioned unlikely events.



Lester (13-6) posted his second straight excellent outing. He went six innings, allowing one earned run on three hits with four walks and three strikeouts. A pitch count of 113 with runners on first and second and no outs forced Terry Francona's hand but Daniel Bard (2 scoreless innings, 3 strikeouts) responded like the best set-up man in baseball (him) usually does.



A subplot worth filing away is the fact that Dan Wheeler is suddenly more effective than Matt Albers. That means that Wheeler should be used in more important situations than he has been all season. The former Rays reliever and Warwick, RI native pitched a scoreless ninth today with two strikeouts. Albers seems to have remembered who he was lately (a middling reliever that had only played on bad teams) so it's nice insurance to have a battle-tested veteran like Wheeler.



Royals starter Danny Duffy (3-8) actually had a very nice outing but like a true Royal, he didn't come out on top. In six innings, he allowed two earned runs on five hits with two walks and three strikeouts.



No Jacoby Ellsbury, David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis for the second straight game wasn't as big a deal. Varitek gave Boston a 1-0 lead with his RBI triple in the fifth, scoring Jed Lowrie. McDonald added a solo shot (his fifth of the season) in the sixth and Crawford (eighth of the season) showed signs of life with a solo shot of his own in the eighth.



Mike Moustakas hit an RBI single for Kansas City in the seventh-one of only three hits for the home team-but the Red Sox piled on three more in the eighth. Adrian Gonzalez had an RBI single, Lowrie hit a sacrifice fly and Lavarnway just missed his first career homer (it hit off the top of the wall) but settled for an RBI double.



From here, things start to get real for Boston (still a half game behind New York in the AL East) as they face the Texas Rangers four times in hot as hell Arlington. Erik Bedard goes up against C.J. Wilson tomorrow night in the series opener. The only times these teams met in 2011 was to start the season and that did not go so well from my slanted opinion (three-game sweep for the Rangers). A lock in the AL West, Texas will visit Fenway three times Labor Day weekend.



It could be a playoff preview if the Red Sox don't take care of the AL East division crown. Texas is way better than Detroit or Cleveland and even a slight notch over the Yankees since they have a solid rotation, great bullpen and good lineup. I'll take the AL Central shitbums please.



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Red Sox Win Fourth Straight, Send Twins To Sixth Consecutive Defeat

Neither impossibly small strike zones nor early 2-0 deficits could hinder the Boston Red Sox tonight as they rallied for their third straight come-from-behind victory.



They survived home plate umpire Tim McClelland's early squeezing of Erik Bedard and the Twins' two runs in the first inning to come out on top 4-3 at Target Field.



In his second start for the Red Sox (72-43), Bedard (5 innings, 2 earned runs, 3 hits, 4 walks, 6 strikeouts) was much more impressive as he got to throw 90 pitches. If not for Michael Cuddyer's sacrifice fly and a completely bullshit bases-loaded walk by Delmon Young (two strikes were called balls), the lefty wouldn't have given up any runs at all.



Minnesota (51-65) starter Francisco Liriano wasn't the victim of Mcclelland's insanity but he still managed to walk seven batters. In six innings, the erratic lefty allowed three earned runs on four hits with four strikeouts.



It was a strange one and the easiest way to prove that is to tell you how Boston got all their runs. Darnell McDonald tied it at two with a two-run homer (his fourth of the season) in the fifth inning. Jason Varitek put the Red Sox up 3-2 in the sixth with an RBI single. After a Ysuyoshi Nishioka RBI double off Matt Albers (4-3) in the sixth, David Ortiz had the winning RBI with a gift infield single in the seventh. His easy comebacker was stabbed by Twins reliever Phil Dumatrait who promptly slipped on the non-wet infield grass.



After Franklin Morales go the first two outs of the sixth, he handed the ball over to Daniel Bard who got four more outs. Finally, Jonathan Papelbon recorded a 1-2-3 ninth (in seven pitches!) to get his 26th save of the season.



With the Yankees' loss to the Angels, Boston moved to 2.5 games ahead of New York in the AL East. They'll look to keep their winning streak (and Minnesota's losing streak) going tomorrow night as Jon Lester goes against Nick Blackburn in the series finale.



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Even On No Sleep, The Red Sox Pummel The Orioles

Just as I've exhausted all ways of bashing John Lackey and J.D. Drew, I've come to a similar crossroads with the Baltimore Orioles.

The Boston Red Sox arrived in Baltimore at 6 a.m. yesterday but that didn't seem to matter for their offense as they won a slugfest 15-10 over the Orioles at Camden Yards.

Boston (58-36) has now won seven straight over Baltimore (38-55). The O's are completely hopeless against the Red Sox, no matter what big talk they provide to the media.

Even though David Ortiz (and Kevin Gregg) started their three-game suspensions, the Red Sox offense came one run away from a season-high along with 16 hits.

Jacoby Ellsbury paced them with three hits, three runs, a walk and a run. Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis had three RBIs, two hits and a run. Carl Crawford returned and added two hits, two runs and an RBI while Josh Reddick (4th) and Jarrod Saltalamacchia (7th) notched home runs.

Marco Scutaro had two runs and two hits while Darnell McDonald cleared the bases with a three-run double.

Neither Tim Wakefield (4.2 innings, 9 hits, 7 runs, 3 earned, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts) nor O's starter Brad Bergesen (5 innings, 8 hits, 6 runs, 4 earned, 3 strikeouts) stuck around long.

Baltimore put up 12 hits, including three RBIs and two hits by JJ Hardy (including his 14th homer) and two hits, two runs and an RBI (his 16th homer by Adam Jones). Matt Wieters (two runs) and Derrek Lee (two RBIs) had two hits while Nolan Reimold added two RBIs.

Dan Wheeler (2-1) got the win with 2.1 scoreless innings. The Warwick, RI native had a brutal start to the season but since returning from an injury he seems to have found the form he had with the Tampa Bay Rays all those years. He walked one and struck out three.

Tonight figures to be another shootout as Jeremy Guthrie (3-13) takes on Red Sox rookie Kyle Weiland (0-0) in his second MLB start.

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Red Sox Beat Blue Jays On Walk-Off Play At The Plate That Goes Their Way

One of the great things about baseball (and why people will put up with such long seasons) is that no matter how many games you watch it at any level, you always have the chance to see something for the first time.

Last night was one of those special moments as the Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays 3-2 at Fenway Park.

After Blue Jays (42-45) infielder John McDonald (2 hits) hit a two-out single to left field off Red Sox (50-35) closer Jonathan Papelbon, Edwin Encarnacion rounded third with the possible tying run.

However, Boston left fielder Darnell McDonald threw a strike to catcher Jason Varitek, who blocked the plate, and the captain was able to put a tag on Encarnacion before he scored. It was an extremely close play (replays showed that he might have swiped the plate) but he was called out and that's all that matters. A walk-off outfield assist. Crazy.

The bigger news of the contest was that Red Sox starter Jon Lester left after four no-hit innings with a left lat injury. He was placed on the DL today and won't be able to return until at least July 22.

Alfredo Aceves will get Lester's scheduled start on Sunday vs. the Orioles, the last game before the All-Star break.

Called to duty earlier than usual, Matt Albers (3-3) threw two scoreless innings with two strikeouts for the win. Franklin Morales (seventh) and Daniel Bard (eighth) added scoreless frames before Papelbon did his best to blow it when he was handed a 3-0 lead in the ninth.

He allowed four hits, including a two-run bomb (a rainbow over the Monster) by Blue Jays uber slugger Jose Bautista (his 28th of the season) but was bailed out by McDonald and Varitek to get his 18th save of the season.

Brett Cecil (1-4) went the whole way (eight innings) for Toronto. He allowed three earned runs on seven hits with two walks and six strikeouts.

Boston pushed across two in the second on Varitek's RBI double which plated David Ortiz and J.D. Drew's RBI single which scored Varitek.

Batting in the cleanup spot-with Kevin Youkilis sitting-Dustin Pedroia hit his eighth homer of the season, a solo laser show in the third. You know that awesome phrase has jumped the shark when not only does NESN use it for his home run calls but also Sportscenter.

Adrian Gonzalez is out of the lineup tonight for the first time this season as Tim Wakefield takes on Ricky Romero who is a very good lefty that seems to always get knocked around by the Red Sox.

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