That's Better

The Sox jumped back into the drivers seat this past week by dominating National League foes in the form of the Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres. The only loss came last night 6-1 in San Diego. The Sox won this past weekend with a very National League style of play by manufacturing runs and not relying so much on straight power. Then again, the Sox have been doing that all year with their well rounded line up. If you take a gander at the league leaders in, well, anything about the only guy that shows up is Kevin Youkillis for his batting average. Neither Manny or Papi are making a strong case for leading the league in RBI's or home runs, which is far from what is expected at this point of the season across Red Sox Nation.

Josh Beckett picked up his 11th win today and is making last years doubters and naysayers into believers. He's not relying as much on his powerful fastball, and closing out pitch counts on batters with a great looking curve and serviceable splitter. Offspeed pitches is what he struggled with the most last year, and lineups around the league made him pay. This year, look for Beckett to possibly start for the American League in the All-Star game.

Minor injuries are sort of a bother these days in the Sox clubhouse. JD Drew continues to play almost every other day with a strained quad, and Mike Lowell returned last night after missing three straight starts with a sprained thumb. I'll take the little nit-picky injuries over the hits that teams like Toronto and the New York Yankees are absorbing. Curt Schilling is looking like a 40 year old pitcher. There is a lot of mileage in his arm, and it's starting to really show. You could see it after the two starts he had after his near no hitter in Oakland two and a half weeks ago. We'll see, my mantra is better now than August or September. So we all know what this means, it's time to raid Pawtucket. This could be Jon Lester's first look at the majors this season, and Kason Gabbard, who picked up his lone win against the Atlanta Braves last month, is slated to start Tuesday night in Seattle.

Boston has really turned around from the beginning of the month. I was pulling what's left of my hair out for awhile there when the Yankees went on a torrid nine game winning streak. They chopped their deficit to the Sox almost in half, all the way down to seven and a half games. Since that time, they've now fallen back to 11 down. Like I said, much better second half in June. Against New York, Oakland, Arizona and Colorado the Sox went 5-8. Since then against San Francisco, Atlanta and San Diego they have posted a winning record of 7-2. Here is to hoping they can close out the season on a high note out in Seattle before returning home to face the Texas Rangers this next weekend.

On a sad note, former Boston Red Sox closer Rod Beck passed away at the age of 38 when he was found dead on Saturday. He only played for the Sox for three seasons, but those were the seasons where I started being 100% into Red Sox baseball. He played roughly half of his 13 year career in a San Francisco Giants uniform and finished his career with 286 saves. I sort of liken current closer Jonathon Papelbon's fire and emotion displayed on the field to that of Beck. Each time he saved a game he looked and acted like a guy from my old slow pitch softball team celebrating when someone brought Old Milwaukee to the game. I couldn't help but think, "how did this trucker get into the major leagues?" Sadly, he succumbed to his battle to drug and alcohol addiction. This guy was loved by his teammates, coaches, and media. It's sad a guy like this had to go.