Kevin Youkilis, Cookie Monster

After the Red Sox' 5-1 win to take 3 out of 4 from the Detroit Tigers last night, Detroit manager, Jim Leyland had this to say about Kevin Youkilis; "You have to execute pitches to get people out, and we just gave him cookie after cookie for three days. He just beat our brains out." The Tigers fed Youkilis cookies, and Youkilis feasted. In the four game series, Kevin hit four home runs, to go with seven RBI's, two doubles, and five runs scored while batting at a .350 clip. Last night's home run came in the 5th inning with two out, Jacoby Ellsbury on first base, and gave the Sox a 5-1 lead. With an effective Josh Beckett on the mound was all the Sox would need.

Josh Beckett was in control the entire game as he went 7 innings holding the Tigers to just one run on 6 hits to go with 8 strikeouts and zero walks. The 7th strikeout of the night, courtesy of Brandon Inge, was the 1000th of Beckett's career (only 4713 more to go to catch Nolan Ryan)! Tigers' rookie, Matthew Joyce, got his first up-close look at Beckett last night. His observation was one that fans in Boston are well aware of. "The ball just exploded out of his hand. That's why he's one of the best pitchers in the game". Indeed he is, as Beckett was determined to lead his team to a series win over the Tigers, while improving his record to 4-2.

Justin Verlander was not up to the challenge of facing the World Champs. The Red Sox got to him in the second inning. Singles by Mike Lowell and JD drew, followed by a wild pitch, put runners on second and third for Jason Varitek. The Captain singled to left field, scoring two runs, with the throw from left glancing off of JD Drew's left forearm, which appeared to hurt, but luckily caused no damage. Varitek ended up sneaking down to second on the throw, and one batter later, Coco Crisp bunted him over to third. He scored off of a Jacoby Ellsbury sacrifice fly giving Beckett a 3-0 lead, which was more than enough for the future Cy Young award winner.

Josh came out of the game after 7 innings, having thrown 102 pitches. Terry Francona turned the ball over to Craig Hansen, giving the rookie another chance to show off his stuff. In his previous outing, Hansen looked great in his first inning, but got in trouble as he tried to complete a second inning. Tito may have taken note of that and gave him only one inning last night, in which Hansen retired the Tigers 1-2-3, only using 12 pitches to induce two ground outs and a pop out.

Francona must have been feeling lucky last night. Rather than cash his chips in with either Papelbon or Okajima in the ninth, he opted to let it ride, putting all of his money on number 17 on the roulette wheel and giving it a spin, calling in Manny Delcarmen to wrap the game up. Last night was Francona's lucky night. The wheel spun, the ball bounced around, looked for a home, and came to rest gently on number 17. Manny got 2 quick outs, striking out Miguel Cabrera, and getting Matthew Joyce to ground out to Pedroia on the first pitch. He almost got into trouble as Marcus Thames singled to left, but four pitches later Brandon Inge flied out to end the game.

Taking 3 of four on the road against Detroit is a terrific way to start this road trip. Now on to Minnesota for four games against the AL Central leading Twins. This will be the first meeting between the two teams this year, and tonight it kicks off with Jon Lester matched up against arguably the funniest name in baseball today, Boof Bonser, who just edges out Coco Crisp for the distinction. Did you know he legally changed his name from John to Boof in 2001? Apparently, Boof had been a childhood nickname that he loved enough to make it legal. (Hmm, Rooster as my legal name?) Lester has looked sharper in his last two outings, while Bonser (2-4) is still trying to get into a rhythm. The pitching match up should lean in the Sox' favor, but don't expect the Twins to roll over, having won 7 of their last 10 games.

(Baseball Photos courtesy of Yahoo Sports)

Red Sox Wake Sleeping Tigers

One day after Tim Wakefield hypnotized the Tigers to sleep with his dancing knuckle ball, Clay Buchholz woke them up with the smell of blood. In the second inning, Gary Sheffield laced a ball off of Buchholz for a single. Buchholz was okay, and got out of the inning unscathed, but the wound left the smell of blood drifting across Comerica Park. The sleepy Tigers took the field in the top of the third, and slowly the aroma wafted past their noses. Slowly their whiskers twitched at the detection of the scent, and their excitement rose. The once sleeping Tiger lifted its head, stretched and let out a fearsome roar.

Claws fully extended, the Tigers came up to bat in the bottom of the scoreless 3rd inning. By the end of the inning, all nine batters had been to the plate, seven of them reached first base, and 4 of them had crossed home. Buchholz returned to the dugout, alive, but tattered and torn. The Sox fought back in the fourth with a 2 run home run by Kevin Youkilis, but the Tigers were not done with Buchholz yet, scoring one more run off of him in the fourth inning on 3 consecutive singles. Buchholz was finished, nothing left but bones strewn across the lair.

The Sox still had fight left in them and were able to score 2 more runs in the 5th inning as Tigers' starter Armando Galarraga wore down as well. Galarraga surrendered a lead off walk to Jason Varitek and hit Julio Lugo to put the first two batters on. A Jed Lowrie sacrifice fly, and a David Ortiz single pulled the Sox back within one run with the score now Tigers 5, Red Sox 4.

There has been discussion about how Julian Tavarez has not pitched in a long time, and without regular work, he'll become rusty and ineffective. That no longer needs to be debated. Sent in to help the vanquished Buchholz, Tavares was as rusty as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (pre-oil can). Terry Francona gave him the entire 5th inning to manage, and he managed to turn that into three singles, a double, and three more Detroit runs. When a Tiger eats, he gets tired and goes off to rest and digest, which is what Detroit wandered off into the jungle to do. Meanwhile, the Red Sox, faced with a daunting 8-4 deficit, did not give in but rather continued to chip away.

In the 6th inning, Youkilis hit his second home run of the day, this time a solo shot, and in the 7th inning, it was Mike Lowell's turn for heroics. With two on and two out, Lowell ripped his third home run of the season into the left field stands to tie the game at eight. Then in the 8th inning with two outs and runners on first and second, Tito had a hunch and pinch hit Dustin Pedroia for Jed Lowrie who was 0-3 with a sacrifice fly up to that point. Pedroia did not let Tito down and hit a single to bring in JD Drew from second base to put the red Sox on top for the first time in the game, 9-8.

Hideki Okajima held the Tigers scoreless in the 8th inning, with some help from a questionable base running move. With runners on first and second, the result of back to back singles, one out and Gary Sheffield at the plate, Tigers' manager, Jim Leyland, sent the runners on a 3-2 pitch. Sheffield swung with enough force to tear down a small building, but missed for out number two, and Varitek fired down to third base to nail Magglio Ordonez to end the inning.

So, Red Sox fans everywhere sat back, put their feet up, and said, "Papelbon is coming in, this one is over". Well, not so fast. Matthew Joyce, playing in only the second big league game of his career, tried to check his swing on a Papelbon changeup and made contact with the ball. The ball lazily rolled out onto the field like a well executed bunt, and Joyce easily reached first base. Next up was old pal Edgar Renteria who hit a weak grounder to short. Lugo panicked and tried to rush in order to possibly get the lead runner at second, and bobbled the ball for an error. Ivan Rodriguez bunted the runners to 2nd and 3rd, and Curtis Granderson grounded out. So, with 2 outs, Placido Polanco, who had a hot bat all night, stepped up. Papelbon threw him three straight balls, before finally getting two strikes to even the count. His final pitch of the night was a fastball that jammed Polanco. Polanco swung and shattered his bat on the pitch. As parts of the bat flew everywhere, the ball lofted over Lugo's head and landed safely in shallow left field.

The Tigers had won. They loped off into the grass to lick their paws and digest their meal.

But, the Red Sox went back into the dugout, and loaded both barrels of their big game shotgun (also known as Josh Beckett). Tonight, the Tiger hunt commences.

(Baseball photos courtesy of ESPN) (Shere Kahn image courtesy of Animated-Views)

Walk in the Park as Red Sox Beat Tigers 6-3

Walk in the park indeed, but it was the Tigers who did the walking as Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up 8 free passes in just 5 innings and still managed to exit with a 4-1 lead. The Tigers just couldn't convert those free base runners into runs. It is very unusual for a pitcher to survive that many walks, but that shows you that Dice-K battled hard and never gave in. In fact, he seemed to be following a trend he started last year. Dice-K is stubborn and does not like to give up hits to batters. In counts where a fastball over the plate is warranted, Dice-K would rather keep the ball away from the batter and risk the walk, and last night he gave up a dangerous number of them. But, when he wasn't walking batters, he was getting them out, as the Tigers only managed two hits against him, as he improved his record to a perfect 5-0 on the year.

Following Dice-K to the mound was Craig Hansen, fresh up from Pawtucket. The Red Sox are looking for someone to step up into a dependable middle relief role, and Hansen is loaded with talent that the Red Sox hope is finally ripe for the picking. Hansen did not disappoint as he make quick work of the Tigers with a 1-2-3 6th inning. The 7th inning, however, was not as clean. With runners on first and second and no outs, Hansen induced the dangerous Magglio Ordonez to hit into a double play, leaving one runner on third. But, rather than a quick out to escape any damage, Hansen tore a page from Dice-K's play book and walked the next two batters to load the bases. Terry Francona had seen enough, and with the left handed Matthew Joyce coming up, he brought in Hideki Okajima to create a favorable lefty-lefty match up.

But Tigers' manager, Jim Leyland, has been around far too long to fall for that old trick. Jimmy said, "I'll see your lefty and raise you a righty", as he sent Marcus Thames to pinch hit. Sure enough, Marcus drove the first pitch he saw into center field, driving in two runs. Okajima immediately settled down and retired the next four batters he faced before turning the game over to Jonathan Papelbon to close shop in the ninth for his tenth save of the year. It has become clear that Okajima does not do so well with inherited runners. He is much better coming in at the top of an inning (note to Francona).

The Sox got some nice hitting from Mike Lowell as he went 3 for 5 with a 2 run home run, a double and a single. Believe it or not, the home run gave Lowell his first RBI of the 2008 season, thanks to his time on the DL. Kevin Youkilis also contributed with a 2 run home run of his own, while Big Papi collected the final 2 RBI with a single that drove in Pedroia from second in the 7th, and a solo home run to right in the 9th. Great to see Papi driving the ball again as the home run tied him with Manny Ramirez for the team lead with 6. Manny had himself a well hit double (that would have been an easy triple for Ellsbury, who unfortunately went 0-5), but Manny remained homerless, unable to close in on magic number 500.

So, the Sox extend their winning streak to four games, while the Tigers match with a losing streak of four games. Tonight, Tim Wakefield squares off against Nate Robertson, who has struggled this year starting off with a 1-3 record, but may be coming around as his win came in his last outing against the Yankees. The Red Sox should pounce on the Tigers while the Tigers are cold - they have too much talent to want to face on a winning streak. Let's get our wins and get out of town.

On the injury front, Curt Schilling will throw this afternoon for the first time in his rehab program. He'll be throwing from 60 feet just to feel things out and take it slow. One step at a time, but keep your fingers crossed. We all know how valuable Curt can be come October! Bartolo Colon, meanwhile, pitched two scoreless innings in an extended spring training game against the Orioles. He experienced no pain in his injured oblique, and topped out at 93 MPH. Good news - you can never have too much pitching!