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.