Road Trip

First, congratulations to this guy. That’s relief pitcher Hideki Okajima who won April’s American League Rookie of the Month Award.

Currently, I’m sitting at my desk about ready to listen to the first few innings of the Red Sox Mariners game before I go home. Hopefully they can get a quick pick me up against the M’s before heading out on the road to face the Twins this weekend. I, personally, would like to see the Sox retain the Mayor's Cup this weekend. Anyway...Dice-K is on the mound and his last outings against the New York Yankees were solid. He looks like he’s really starting to settle in the three spot behind last night’s winner and Major League Baseball’s only current six game winner Josh Beckett. Here’s what they’ll need to do tonight and this weekend.

- RF JD Drew, who is getting over the flu this week, needs to heat up again and drive in runs. Early April was all systems go for the formal National Leaguer, until he started to slump between the two series against the Yankees. He’s left more than 10 on in the last two and a half weeks.

- Manager Terry Francona needs to get Closer Jonathan Papelbon out into a save situation ASAP so he can redeem himself from Tuesday nights first blown save. I thought he should have put him in last night instead of Mike Timlin, but that’s why I don’t manage in the bigs I guess.

- LF Manny Ramirez needs to continue his hitting trend. He started off April very slow and looks to be back to his old self. When you’ve got SS Julio Lugo, 1B Kevin Youkilis, and DH David Ortiz ahead of you and getting on base consistently, you need to hit more often. It’s that simple.

- The bottom two of the starting rotation needs to pitch well against the Twins Friday and Saturday night. If the Minnesota lineup figures out Tim Wakefield early and Julian Tavarez can’t do a serviceable job then it’s going to be a long weekend.

- Bit players need to continue their success from April. OF Wily Mo Pena needs to play well despite being his usual human strike out machine-self. IF Alex Cora also should continue to do well filling in for rookie 2B Dustin Pedroia. Of course Francona may stick with his normal lineup over the weekend road series, which wouldn’t surprise me at all.

- When called upon, reliever Hideki Okajima will have to prove himself now that he earned the AL Rookie of the Month award for April yesterday. Rookies sometimes have a tendency to regress after some noted success.

- Lastly, but maybe most importantly, the defense needs to step up and stop committing so many fucking errors. It’s getting old.

Right at the moment the Sox are down 4-0 to the Mariners in the TOP OF THE 1^st. Damnit. I’ll be out of town until Monday as I’ll be in Sarasota, Florida. Hopefully I’ll have something good to write about.

P.S. Lugo has fucked up twice, now it’s 5-0 with only one out. So much for the defense cutting back on those errors. This sucks ass.