ALCS Preview?
September 7, 2008 by Jim Mulligan
Filed under Major League Baseball, Red Soxs
Smokin’
Winners of two of three in Arlington, the Sox come back home to face the Rays in what will be a record breaking night. Tomorrow night Red Sox Nation and Yankee blogger Joe Gallo will fill Fenway Park for the 456th consecutive time officially taking the consecutive sellout streak from the Cleveland Indian fans.
The good news from the weekend is Sox ace, Josh Beckett took the mound Friday and delivered a solid outing. He threw 80 pitches over 5.0 innings and has had no issues with his elbow since. Today, Paul Bird (anyone remember me asking why 11 teams passed on him allowing the Sox to aquire him) went 6.2 innings allowing no runs on three hits with three walks and four K’s. When the Sox aquired him, he was 7-10 4.53 ERA and after todays work, he is 11-11 4.39 ERA
David Ortiz hit his 18th homer of the season - his first in 20 games and Dustin Pedroia went 1-4 to keep his lead leading .330 average in tact.
The only real bad news is the fact that Tim Wakefield threw batting practice on Saturday night. Unfortunately, his BP was during live action and he allowed 7 runs in a 9 batter stretch in what was the shortest stint of his 13 year career in Boston.
The weekend got better as the Rays were swept in Toronto by the now third place Blue Jays. I wondered if the pressure of sitting on top of the AL East in September would get to the young, upstart Rays. Now the Rays, losers of 5 out of their last 6, limp to Boston tomorrow for that record setting evening. Evan Longoria was taken of the DL but isn’t expected to play until next weekend in New York against the Yanks.
The pitching matchups for this potential playoff preview look like this:
Monday @ 7:05PM
Lester (13-5 3.37) vs. Edwin Jackson (11-9 4.07)
Tuesday @ 7:05PM
Matsuzaka (16-2 2.88) vs. Scott Kazmir (11-6 2.99)
Wednesday @ 7:05PM
Beckett (12-9 4.20) vs. Andy Sonnanstine (13-7 4.66)
If you have any questions or just want to talk sports, I can be reached at jimmulligan@sportstalkbuzz.com. I look forward to hearing from you
Joe - Enjoy your first trip to Fenway
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September 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Jays did you guys a massive favour in sweeping the Rays! I hope you guys catch them now!
September 7th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Yes our Jays here in Toronto did Boston a nice favour. If only the Jays would have won a few more early in the season they could be challenging for the Wildcard or division title.
September 8th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Ya, really happy with the Jays effort this weekend. Now, if they can just lay down when they come to Boston this weekend for the 4 games, I’d really appreciate it.