No-No on the Back Bay

No more than eight months after Clay Buchholz threw the 17th no hitter in Boston Red Sox history, Jon Lester tossed the 18th tonight against the Kansas City Royals. He's also the first lefty in half a century to accomplish the feat for the Sox as well. Also a statistic of note, this is only the second time in Royals history they've had a no hitter thrown at them. You have to go back to within the first five years of the franchise in 1973 when Nolan Ryan pitched one for the California Angels.

Lester ended up walking only two batters in the entire game, which included a ninth inning walk Esteban Herman who managed to find his way to third base via a pair of ground outs to third thanks to Tony Pena Jr. and to first by David DeJesus. Lester ended the game with his ninth strike out of the night against Alberto Callapso.

Hopefully tonight will serve as a confidence booster for the young lefty, as his start to the season has been a little inconsistent at times. Now with Buchholz on the DL, the Sox are going to have to rely on Lester a bit more while Dice-K and Josh Beckett shoulder the main responsibility in the rotation. Something Beckett has struggled with as well through the first 50 games.

Not to be outdone tonight and over the weekend's sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers, the offense is lighting things up after returning home to Fenway. The Sox have scored 30 runs in the past four days and lead the AL with 253 runs. They also happen to be the only team in the AL currently flirting with .600 as well. It hasn't been taken care of by your usual cast of characters, even though Ortiz is starting to get his act together a bit while Lowell is finding his groove after returning from the DL.

Go down any list of stats for the Sox at the moment and you'll find that the only two everyday players batting above .300 are Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Manny Ramirez. Do I think more than three should be? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not quite so naive as to think you'll have a lineup with four of five hitters above .300, but last year did spoil us all a bit. Youk and Manny are pulling down amazing numbers besides what they are batting for average as well with an OPS of 1.003 and .920 respectively. Manny is still sitting at 498 and may not get to 500 at home while playing against a Royals staff that, for the most part, has been pretty solid the first month and a half.

The Sox will get to enjoy three more games against the Royals at home before getting out on the road for a normally sticky West Coast trip. Boston will set up shop in Oakland for the weekend before traveling up the coast to play the last place Seattle Mariners. After the trip the Sox will travel cross country the weekend after to play a four game series with Baltimore.

Sox Lose. Again.

And Manny forgets he's Manny and makes this play in left today. At first when he uh, had to jump off the wall I thought he gave the ball away to a fan in the stands not knowing how many outs there were.

I'm too depressed to write anything about how awful the Sox are pitching lately. Hopefully at Fenway this weekend they can beat up on the Brewers a little bit. Please, God?

Domed

The Sox traveled to Minnesota and got slapped around back to the east coast in convincing fashion by a surprisingly stout Twins line-up over the four game series, dropping three games to the Twinkies. The Twins spotted the Sox three runs in the top of the first inning tonight, but it only took Clay Buchholz three innings to give the lead back when the Twins went ahead on a Delmon Young sacrifice into a fielders choice. The Twins didn't look back and ended up with a 7-3 win.

After trying to battle back last night and coming up one run short, it looked like the Sox packed it in early in the game after Minnesota took the lead. It's not surprising, at this point in the season and in the series with the Twins you'd be kidding yourself if the team wasn't thinking about boarding a plane and getting the fuck out of Minneapolis. Probably in the next couple hours, the Sox will be on their way to Baltimore to play a quick two game series against the O's before heading home to Fenway on Friday for a weekend interleague matchup with the Milwaukee Brewers.

The next three starts will have Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Dice-K on the mound so hopefully run control won't be as big of an issue as it was in the Metrodome. In the midst of the losing effort over the weekend the Tampa Bay Rays have strung together a five game winning streak and have closed in the Sox lead in the East to half a game. Unfortunately, the Rays don't appear to be waking up anytime soon (to realize they're Tampa) and could possibly be hanging around until the end of the month or beyond, which may give the young team enough confidence to be a thorn in the side of most teams into June and beyond.

We're nearing the fifty game mark, and the Sox are playing streaky at best. Not quite the same consistency as last season, but hell, the first two months of last year were fairly unprecedented for Boston. The Sox are making a habit of winning five or six games in a row or even eight or nine out of 10, and then dropping four in a row or three of four like this past weekend. They've been hit with some injuries early on and some key slumps from some key players. Hopefully as the season lays itself out they'll be able to adjust and find a groove so they can make it back to the postseason (expected) and possibly another division crown.

Manny's March to 500 - Just a quick note, Manny hit his 498th career home run tonight in the first inning to bring him within two homers of the 500 mark, for all you math whiz's out there.

Showdown In Minny

After Jonathan Papelbon was unable to close on what looked like a great come from behind victory, the Sox dropped their opener with the Twins last night. The blown save was the second in a row for the normally sharp and seemingly inhuman Papelbon.

Tonight, the Sox sang a different tune while Dice-K earned his sixth win of the year. Over the course of seven innings, the second year Japanese pitcher struck out seven while only giving up two earned which is all the Twins were able to muster in the Metrodome this evening. With this past outing in the books Dice-K has racked up 47 K's on the season which puts him near the top in the American League.

Jed Lowrie hit his first major league career home run immediately after Coco Crisp hit his first home run since last season which put the Sox into a 2-2 tie, Lowrie's dinger proved to be the go ahead run for the Sox. Mike Lowell followed suit in the eighth to stretch the lead to 4-2 and Dustin Pedroia knocked in Lowrie to make the contest 5-2 in the top of the ninth.

It's nice to see that the offense is still coming from seemingly every part of the Sox lineup. Now with Lowell back in the lineup after coming back from the 15-day DL last week, things should be a little more consistent. Not that the Sox haven't been trying since the World Series MVP has been out. Boston is currently tops in the AL for runs scored with 198. Only the Arizona Diamondbacks have more in the majors with 204.

Tonight the Twins once again strung together a lot of good hits and put plenty of runners in position to make the game interesting. Tomorrow night will feature Tim Wakefield on the mound for the Sox who has gone 3-2 over the past three season against the Twinks. For tonight, credit the Sox 1-2 bullpen punch of Hideki Okajima and the (at least the past week) slumping Papelbon with closing out the game to seal a win up in the Twin Cities. So far on the season, Boston is 8-3 against the AL Central which only 3.5 games separate the first place Twins from the cellar dwelling Tigers. Hopefully the early season success against the Central can translate into a win tomorrow and even Monday night.