It’s not exactly a double-digit run outburst, but the way the last few games have been going I was pretty happy to see the Sox offense put up four runs. Drew ended a double short of the cycle and planned to “hit the ball and run straight to second” in the 8th inning. Clearly “the idiot” mindset hasn’t completely left the Sox clubhouse. Plus, the Sox really should have scored five runs if Adam Jones hadn’t stolen a perfectly good home run away from Youks. That was just mean.

But the real story, for the fourth game in a row, was starting pitching. Jon Lester continued in the steps of Josh Beckett and Tim Wakefield before him and didn’t allow a run in 7 IP. If you look at the last four starts for the Sox starters they’ve allowed a whopping two runs in 26 IP. That’s a 0.69 ERA! (Beckett, stop giggling.) Lester was possibly the best of the bunch too. He used the entire width of the plate, and when he got two strikes on a guy, he threw a curve that was almost impossible to lay off but ended up at the batters’ feet. Narsty.

I also have a newfound respect for Paps. Not just because he tied Bob Stanley’s record with his 132nd save in a Sox uniform (although Bay deserves just as much credit), but because after watching Ramon Ramirez I recognize that not everybody has the mindset to get that 27th out. In fact, I’d give Ramirez the “Best Relief Pitcher for Outs 19-26″ award. He and Dusty Baker (The Best Manager for 23 Hours a Day) will be in the inaugural class of the 26 out Hall of Fame. Although, I’m not really sure if he should be proud of that…

The Sox may have lost on Sunday, but Dirty Watah was in full party mode. The travesty that is interleague play is over for another 11 months. The Sox may have won five of the six interleague series they played, good for an 11-7 record, but I’m a baseball purist. I don’t like instant replay and I hate interleague play. I’m sorry Natinals, I know that’s the only way you’ll ever come close to selling out a home baseball game, but I just can’t condone AL pitchers hitting or Big Papi playing first base.

On Friday, Josh Beckett was a disappointment. After throwing a complete game shutout in his previous start against the Braves, Beckett could only muster seven innings of shutout baseball against them this time. And this time he gave up six hits! Six! In the CG he only allowed five. You’re slipping, Beckett…

Although it makes me a hypocrite when I then praise Wakefield for his six shutout innings on Saturday. Wakefield pitched fantastic (and by fantastic I mean six shutout innings), and old friend Javier Vazquez did too. You may remember Vazquez from such postseason games as “2004 ALCS Game 3″ and more importantly “2004 ALCS Game 7.” Sadly no first pitch grand slams this time. But between Wake, Oki and Paps it was enough for Wake’s second career 1-0 victory. I can remember a couple of 1-0 losses that Timmeh had suffered, but you had to go all the way back to 1995 to find another 1-0 victory. Maybe he can regress back to the mean and get a couple more 1-0 wins before the end of the season.

Sadly the Sox couldn’t close out the sweep…again. The Sox have now had the opportunity to sweep in four of their last five series and couldn’t finish the job. When Chipper Jones hit a HR in the first off of Penny, I should have known the game was over. After all, one starter in each of the first two games of the series didn’t allow a run, so why should the last game be any different? Unfortunately the shutout pitcher on Sunday was Atlanta’s Tommy Hanson. If only Chip Caray could stop turning every Atlanta pitcher into the second coming of Cy Young, I might be able to listen to TBS games with sound.

But at least we didn’t lose two of three to the Natinals!

What did you expect? A perfect game the first game off the DL after having not pitched in almost a year? OK, don’t answer that.

Smoltz had a rough first inning, and that might be kind. He looked like the second coming of Dice-K, pitching around the strike zone and having zero command of his fastball. He gave up four runs before Joe could finish reciting Smoltz’s resume. Didn’t the Natinals know that they were supposed to be an easy task for the great and powerful Smoltz? And then he settled down, got over the first inning jitters and pitched a decent next four innings, including striking out the side in the 5th. The only thing worse than Smoltz’s first inning was Ramon Ramirez’s at bat in the 9th. It was maybe the most embarrassing at-bat I’ve ever seen: flinching at two outside fastballs and whiffing at a pitch above his head.

The real problem in this game wasn’t Smoltz (although, he certainly didn’t meet the OMG!!111 IT’S JOHN SMOLTZ!!! hype), it was the offense curling up into a ball as soon as he gave up four runs in the first. Come one guys, you’ve helped out Dice-K this season when he explodes, you’d think you could do the same with your shiny new pitcher.

So long Natstown, it’s been fun. And I’m sure this one game will give you enough highlights to produce more of those “Defining Moments” videos. Nothing better than beating up on a 42 year old pitcher fresh off the DL!

We’re now ~70 games into the season, and everybody realizes that the Natinals are a terrible team. Letting them change the rules to put them on an even playing field doesn’t seem like a good workaround though. As Hall of Famer Willie Keeler once said the point of baseball is to “hit ‘em where they a’int.” The Natinals (with the exception of their bullpen) clearly not getting the concept, still hits balls at the opposing defense. However, they’re now sending splintered bats at the defensive players as well. True, it worked once turning an inning-ending double-play ball into a single because NICK GREEEEN had to do a little dance so as not to get impaled, but somebody should tell the Nats that following in Roger Clemens’ footsteps is not going to get them a better pitching staff. (Remember the 2000 World Series? Mike Piazza can remind you.)

Lucky for the Sox, the Natinals pitching staff isn’t taking steroids and throwing 95mph fastballs, so we got to watch Big Papi’s first home run away from Fenway this season. Of course, so did he. Clever of Papi to make his 1000th (and 1001st, and 1002nd) RBIs of his career from a booming home run to dead center so that he could take his time to enjoy it. And Tek’s homer was no slouch either, traveling a mere 436 feet to right center. If it was at the New Toilet the ball probably would have cleared the top deck.

Tomorrow is the first start for John Smoltz in a Red Sox uniform. Win or lose though, the Sox now have the best record against the Natinals of the top three teams in the AL East. Thanks Nats!

I had heard such horrible things about the Natinals coming into this game that I was a little disappointed. True, it was classic Natinals baseball: keep the game close, and then once Manny Acta goes to his bullpen the game turns into a laugher (losing pitcher: Julian Tavarez). But after Brad Penny’s 2007 season when his ERA was almost lower than his BA (3.03 ERA and .246 BA), I was hoping for one of those games where the pitcher shuts out the other team and hits a homer. Was I expecting too much?

MLB has clearly given up on the Nats. After the game I went to my trusty iPhone to re-watch some highlights but was in for a little surprise. Clicking on Bay’s game-tying solo homer got me a video of a routine pop to center (clearly Trupe is editing the highlight reels). Ellsbury’s RBI triple is a video of Brad Penny stepping into the batter’s box. Bay’s two run single? That’s a nice sweeping landscape of the bleacher seating in NatsTown. Apparently the only video that MLB lets out of the Nats is the terrible commercials. I guess it’s like the old philosophical question of a tree falling in the woods: If nobody watches the Natinals, are they actually that bad? (The answer to both questions is yes.)

I guess sometimes it’s good to be patient. After Dice-K’s latest beating on Friday I was about ready to recommend he be treated like a horse with a broken leg. And then I went on ESPN.com and saw the headline “Red Sox Put Dice-K on DL.” Hallelujah! My prayers had been answered! Of course, for him to go to the DL, there has to be something wrong with him, right? So I clicked on the link and found that his DL stint is attributable to “shoulder strain.” Or, in technical terms: “general suckage.” Now we just need to find the “general suckage” DL term for H1N1E6.

The team responded to Theo’s move with a complete game shutout from Beckett on Saturday. Sadly Beckett’s Saturday opponent was D-Lowe. I’m a Red Sox fan first and a sentimental guy second, so I was of course happy to see the Sox beat D-Lowe’s current team. It’s just too bad that the rotations couldn’t have been aligned a little differently so that Dice-K’s automatic loss could have come against 2004 playoff hero D-Lowe at Fenway. Plus, I’m a fantasy owner 3rd, and I could have used the win this week.

Then on Father’s Day, after blowing leads of 4-1, 4-2, and 5-4, and Paps loading the bases in the top of the 9th only to escape the jam with the game still knotted at five, the Sox got an unlikely hero in the bottom of the 9th: the wind. Oh, I guess NICK GREEEEENNN!!!! deserves credit too (he’s somewhere under the mob in that picture). It takes skill to hit a medium deep fly ball to right field knowing that the 20mph gusting winds will grab it, and push it into the stands just past the Pesky Pole. NICK must have rubbed Pesky’s head in the clubhouse in between innings, because it was a classic Pesky home run*. You might even call it a Father’s Day Miracle (what’s less likely, six runs in the 9th, or a NICK GREEEEEEN home run?). The only downside was that we didn’t get to decrease the Timmeh to 193 counter after the victory, although the Bobby Cox ejection total did rise by one.

*I say having never seen Johnny Pesky hit a homer.

I think Penny may be on to something here. Call it a wakeup call or the epitome of “no pain, no gain,” but after Penny took a line drive off his chest in the 1st, he suddenly started pitching like the same guy who keep the MFY scoreless in his last start. Plus in the process he earned his 100th career win. Congrats.

But his heroics got me thinking, if a liner off the chest made Penny pitch like a man possessed, who wants to take a bat to Dice-K’s chest? I’d ask H1N1E6 to do it, but I’d be afraid he’d miss and hit Dice-K’s elbow instead.

2-2, 1 home run, and 3 RBIs…in the 4th inning yesterday. Yes, in one inning Papi practically matched his counting stats for the entire month of May (five more runs, and three more RBIs and he would have). If you look at June, he’s batting .333 with a .429 OBP, four HR, 5 R and 10 RBIs. And while a number of people are quick to say that the conversion from David Arias to Big Papi is complete, I’m going to hold off. Why? Because the last time I labeled a star player who struggled early in the season as “back,” he proceeded to allow seven runs in 6+ innings in Philadelphia on Sunday. Who says I’m superstitious?

Also, in honor of Wakefield picking up his 9th win of the season and 173 in a Red Sox uniform yesterday, I’ve started a countdown to his 193rd victory on the sidebar on the right. We’re at 20 and counting…

Another fewer than five inning outing from Dice-K, and guess what, I’m not going to rip him. In fact, I’ve got to give him some props. After last-night’s 13 inning marathon, coming back out to pitch after an hour-plus rain-delay between the 1st and 2nd innings is downright gutsy (there’s an adjective I’ll probably never use to describe Dice-K again). I’m sure he knew the bullpen was spent, and the fact that he was able to give the team more than a single inning went a long way to helping the team win.

Now that said, I’m a little disappointed by the rules of baseball. According to rule 10.17, if a starting pitcher doesn’t complete five innings, he is ineligible to be named the winning pitcher. In 99% of cases, this is the appropriate thing to do. But considering that the rule gives the official scorer the power to choose the relief pitcher who he feels deserves the title of “winning pitcher,” I’m surprised that it doesn’t also give him the discretion to credit the starting pitcher as the “winning pitcher.” If you include the 60-70 warmup pitches that Dice-K had to make after the rain delay ended, that’s a total of 151-161 pitches on the day. For Dice-K that should at least be worth, what, 5.1 innings? He gets a lot of crap from me, but in this situation he got robbed.

The Sox also couldn’t have won without the three errors from H1N1E6 and four hits from Jimmy Rollins. What? Wait, you’re telling me that H1N1E6 got four hits and the Phillies made three errors? Clearly this rain is making your head all foggy. You’d better get under the umbrella with Papi before you really lose it.

Sometime around when Lester was cutting through the Phillies lineup like a hot knife through butter, I came to a realization: we have a starting pitching staff again! No more of this 4 inning, 6 runs crap from what was supposed to be our ace and number two starters. Lester’s last three outings have been superb: 1.23 ERA over 22 IP (that’s an average of 7.1 IP/start) and 34 strikeouts. 34! Including this series from last night:

Bottom 4th: Philadelphia
- R. Howard struck out swinging
- R. Ibanez struck out swinging
- S. Victorino struck out swinging

Bottom 5th: Philadelphia
- P. Feliz struck out swinging
- C. Ruiz struck out swinging
- J. Blanton struck out swinging

Beckett is going to have to continue to step up his game if he’s going to keep that “ace” designation on the pitching staff. (Yeah, yeah, I know, Beckett’s last three start’s he’s allowed 3, 2 and 1 hits. But he doesn’t have 34 K’s!)

I just hope that the starters haven’t turned it on too late. The once lights-out bullpen is starting to show some cracks in the armor, maybe because of overuse. Since Paps wasn’t available after closing out two games vs. the MFY, Ramirez tried to take his job for the night. I guess closing the 9th out is harder than it looks. One Ryan Howard blast later and we were heading to the 13th.

Lucky for the Sox, the rest of the pen held up, while the Phillies’ pen phinally phaltered in the 13th. You know the Phillies used the last man available in their pen, since he gives up a pinch hit to H1N1E6. But an interleague win is a win. Especially when you’ve got Dice-K going the next day. Crap, maybe the pitching staff still has some work to do.