Manny & Wily Mo power up....

The Red Sox finished off their 4 game set with the Cleveland Indians with a 14-9 win in a slug fest at the Jake. The Sox were paced by the red hot Manny Ramirez. Manny is hitting .434 with 6 HRS, 19RBI'S in 15 games since the All-Star break. It looked like this might be the year that Manny didn't get 30HRS and 100 RBI's but at this rate, he looks to be back on track. Right now he is on pace for 27HRS & 103 RBI'S. His offense has certainly been a welcome boost to the Sox lineup, as they continue to pound out the hits. They have 5 guys hitting over .300 in the lineup, those guys make up the 2-6 hitters, talk about a lineup a pitcher doesn't want to face right now, especially with the way Coco and Lugo have been hitting lately.
Highlights of last night's 14-9 victory
*Manny hits 2HR's, his 49th career game with 2 or more jacks. His home run in the 2nd was the third longest in history at the Jake, it went an estimated 481 FT, a true monster shot to straight away center. His HR in the 8th was again to straightway center. When Manny's hitting to ball to center you know he's going well, that's 3 HR's in the last week that have gone out that way.
* Wily Mo Pena, with trade rumors swirling around, he had one of his best offense nights of the year, 4-5 with 4 RBI'S & 2R's. Apparently the Cleveland pitching staff didn't listen to their scouts or their scouts are just that bad, because they threw Wily fastball after fastball and he kept smashing the ball all over the park. He saw more fastballs last night than he has all season, to his credit he was swinging early and made solid contact. It's crazy how much power this guy actually has, when he connects with a baseball the ball just flies off his bat. I am sure Theo was licking his lips after a performance like that last night, his trade value just went up from 0 to a 1. It's clear that playing time is what Wily Mo needs, something that he has never really had the chance to do since he played 110 games in 2004 with Cincinnati. It may be worth some small market team to take a chance on him, with regular playing time, he should produce 30 HRS a year.
*Curt Schilling in his rehab start for Triple-A Pawtucket last night was outstanding, 5 innings, 8k's only gave up 2 hits, walked none on 66 pitches. Schilling looks like he is well on his way to coming back and being a lights pitcher, One more rehab start to extend his arm out and he'll be back on Aug 6th to face the Angels.

Other news
Kason Gabbard was cruising through the game having retired 13 of 14 batters, but ran into a blip, where he lost control and starting giving hits and never made it out of the 5th, so he wasn't eligible for the win. This type of performance may open the door for Jon Lester, or make the Sox more inclined to deal Gabbard at the deadline. I think it's clear to the Sox that the upside of Gabbard is not great compared to other arms they have in the minors (Bucholz, Bowden), they may sell now with his value being at it's high point.
The Sox are 7.5 games up, and have the best record in the majors 62-40 as the head for the Trop and the great pitching of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Let's hope the offense keeps going against these guys. We have to face Kazmir on Sunday.

Sox heat up.....the bats have awoken

Well, as gloom and doom as the first part of last week was for the Sox, it ended on a positive note as they have now won 3 in a row, after taking 3 out of 4 from the Chicago White Sox. They finished off the longest home stand of the season, 6-5. The lead in the East stands at 7 1/2 games, as the Yankees tore apart the weakest pitching staff in baseball for 49 runs in three games, glad the Red Sox have 15 more against the D-Rays. Also, Jon Lester will be called up to start on Monday in Cleveland, his first MLB action since being diagnosed with Cancer last year, he will be taking Julian Tavarez spot in the rotation.
Highlights from the weekend
*Beckett gets win #13 in a 10-3 stomping of former Yankee Jose Contreras. Beckett had 10k's, his only blemish was a three run homer to Jim Thome. This game set the tone for the series. J.D. Drew hit what was an apparent three run homer in the first, however the umpires saw it differently, saying it went high off the wall. One run scored but Manny was thrown out at the plate. Tito came out to argue the call, but to no avail, he ended up getting tossed. Couple this with a pre-game closed door meeting, where Tito told the team to relax, I would call this great coaching. Getting kicked out lit a fire under the Sox and it continued burning all weekend. Coco's triple in the 5th proved to be the game winner, as he laced a ball down the first base line into the tricky right field corner to clear the bases. One negative of the 5th was Big Papi trying to stretch a single into a double, he got thrown out and to add insult he jammed his shoulder , which cost him the rest of the series and it looks like a couple more games this week. The Sox finished off Contreras in the 8th, with Julio Lugo grand slam.
J.D. Drew went 2-4, but red hot Julio Lugo was the hitting star 3-4, 4Rbi's, 2 Runs and a steal, how we were throwing him under the bus not so long ago! The Sox offense once again pound out 10 hits.
*Gabbard pitches another beauty, he now 4-0 and has made a real case to remain in the starting rotation when Schilling returns. Hegave up only 3 hits and retired 15 of 21 batters via the ground ball. Behind the offense surge of Coco Crisp the Sox pummeled the White Sox 11-2 for the victory. Crisp has been on fire the last month of the season, hitting a robust .370 and finally showing the reason why Theo traded for the speedy center fielder. He drove in a career high tying 5 runs, as he came to bat with the bases loaded three times during the game. Twice he delivered the key hit with 2 outs. The Sox finally figured out to score with RISP, as they have struggled in this situation all year. In this game alone they were 5-12 with 11 Rbi's!!! 11 more hits
*The Sox finished off the home stand with another victory 8-5, behind 6 1/3 solid innings from Wakefield, as he improved to 11-9 on the season. The game was well in hand 8-1 in the 6th, when things got a bit shaky.


The Sox really made White Sox starter Jon Garland work in the first, Lugo worked an 8 pitch walk, Cora fouled off pitch after pitch, a 9 pitch a bat before being retied on a nice play by Alex Cintron at second base. Youk worked another walk (8 pitches). Then Manny crushed a home run to deep right into the Sox bullpen for a quick 3-0 lead. Manny has owned Garland in his career hitting over .500 against him with now his 3rd home run.
The Sox finished off Garland in the 5th, with Mike Lowell delivering the knockout punch with his 15th home run of the season, a line shot into the monster seats for a 6-1 Sox lead. The Sox added some more insurance in the 6th, on a Youkilis sac fly and a single by Manny, his 4th rbi of the game. Wakefield in the 7th gave up a single to AJ Pierzynski and then a ringing double to left from Jermaine Dye, after a sac fly to make it 8-2, Josh Fields added another single that plated Dye to make it 6-3, that was it for Wakefield and on came Manny Delcarmen. Delcarmen has been awesome of late but today showed he was human and why he struggled so much last year, he had major control issues, after a single to Juan Uribe, he walked Jerry Owens to load the bases. Cintron followed with a single and then Jim Thome was walked on 4 pitches to make it 8-5, with only one out and the bases still loaded and the ever dangerous Paul Konerko coming up. Manny got tough and retired Konerko on a pop-up to first, Okijima came on a struck out Pierzynski to end the threat. Papelbon came on in the 9th to close things out, he was greeted with back to back singles and then walked Alex Cintron to load the bases with no one out and the heart of the White Sox order coming up. Not the way it was planned out, but Paps showed why he is so good, as he came back to over power Thome striking him out of three straight fastballs. He then got Konerko to ground into the game ending double play and the near disaster was advert for save number 22. The Sox get 10 hits once again.

The Sox with RISP the final three games of series were 13-31 with 28 rbi's, that's getting the job done.
Check out these guys stats this weekend
Coco Crisp 8-17 8 rbi's 2 runs, mostly from either the 7th or 8th position
Julio Lugo 6-16 5 rbi's, 4 runs, 5 walks
Manny R. 5-13, 4 rbi's, 5 runs
Lowell 4-13, 4 rbi's, 5 runs'
Fun Stat
Only once in the last 11 games have the Red Sox failed to get 10 hits in a game