Floats Like a Butterfly, Stings Like a Bee

"Hitting that thing is like trying to catch a butterfly with a pair of tweezers." - Tim McCarver
That must have been the general feeling last night in the Tigers' clubhouse as Tim Wakefield's knuckleball floated, dipped, and dived all around the strike zone, guiding the Red Sox to a 5-0 win in the second of their four game series in Detroit. Not only does the knuckleball dance all over the place, but Wakefield was able to greatly vary the speed of his pitches between 57 and 73 mph (as per MLB Gameday) mixing in the curve and fastball more than usual. That is a deadly combination and kept batters off balance all night. Wakefield pitched 8 shutout innings with 6 strikeouts, walked no batters, and allowed only 3 baserunners all night; Carlos Guillen reached first base twice on a single in the 1st and an error by Dustin Pedroia in the 7th, and Ivan Rodriguez reached 2nd on a double in the 8th.

With a 5-0 lead, Terry Francona handed the ball to Mike Timlin in the 9th, providing Jonathan Papelbon with a well timed night off. Timlin allowed a lead off single to Curtis Granderson, but Granderson was erased when the next batter, Placido Polanco, hit into a double play to Julio Lugo at short. Timlin then closed out the game by inducing Carlos Guillen to fly out to Jacoby Ellsbury in center. Good to see Timlin have a nice clean inning. Timlin's fastball topped out at 90 mph, but after being hypnotized by the cobra-like stare of Wakefield's knuckler all night, it must have looked blinding to the helpless Tigers' batters.

The Sox did not need a lot of offense to win this one, but got plenty with Manny Ramirez and Kevin Cash leading the way with 3 hits each. The Red Sox scored 3 in the second inning, sending 7 batters to the plate and driving Tigers' starter, Nate Robertson's, pitch count up. A pair of Kevins (Cash and Youkilis) accounted for a pair of doubles, combined with a lead off walk by Mike Lowell and an RBI single by JD Drew to start the scoring, was all Boston really needed.

But, what better way to celebrate Wakefield's tremendous outing than with some fireworks? Fast forward to the 7th inning. Robertson, whose fastball was less than menacing all night, was tiring out, and David Ortiz took advantage, forcing Robertson to throw eight pitches in the at-bat. Most of the pitches were tantalizingly close, but well placed, until Robertson finally wore down and tossed his final pitch of the night like a boxer wildly flailing at his opponent before dropping to his knees for the TKO. The pitch was right in Papi's wheelhouse, and he sent it high into the Motown night sky for his 7th home run of the year, providing sox fans with the fireworks. But any good fireworks show has a grand finale, right? Enter Manny Ramirez...

After what seems like months, Manny finally broke out his home run swing and took one step closer to history with home run number 497 for his career off of the first pitch thrown in the game by Tigers' reliever Freddy Dolsi. Nothing says Grand Finale better than Big Papi and Manny going back to back!

So, the Tigers are down, losers of 5 in a row, and struggling to get their talented lineup all rowing together. Perfect time for the Sox to stop by for a visit. But before you start to break out the brooms, beware of Tigers in the rushes ready to pounce. In particular, be very wary of tonight's starter for Detroit, Armando Galarraga. He has been sharpening his claws and has been very aggressive this year, touting a skimpy 1.88 ERA with a 2-1 record in 4 starts. He spent a short time in his first big league debut last year with the Rangers, and has never faced the Red Sox in his young career. The Red Sox counter with Clay Buchholz, who has been brilliant in his last 3 starts, and has likewise never faced the Tigers in his young career.

Should be quite a match up! But, beware of sleeping Tigers - and do not, under any circumstances, pull their tail!

(Photos courtest of ESPN)

Power Outage Continues

Red Sox lost last night 7-2 to the long overdue Tigers. We knew that was coming - just didn't know when. A team like the Tigers was certainly not going to winless for much longer.

I spoke about Jon Lester in the past stating that he has to have sharp command to be effective. Last night he looked very strong, regularly hitting 93 mph with his fastball, but he had trouble consistently spotting it. His off speed pitches were good, but like I said before, when his fastball command is off, batters take advantage. The result was 5 hits, 4 walks, and NO strikeouts. The good news is that he looked strong - perhaps too strong. Sometimes when a pitcher is feeling too strong he has trouble with control - ball tends to sail a bit coming out of your hand.

Mike Lowell made a terrific play in the second inning, but twisted his thumb fielding the ball and is now day-to-day with a sprain. Luckily it is only a sprain. Francona moved Youkilis over to third and inserted Sean Casey in at first base, batting in Mike Lowell's spot. This created a bit of an achilles heel for Tito in terms of baseball strategy. The new lineup now featured Casey (lefty), JD Drew (lefty), Varitek (switch but prefers lefty), and Ellsbury (lefty). Tigers' manager Jim Leyland took advantage of that in the 6th inning by bringing in the left handed pitcher, Bobby Seay with no outs, and Manny Ramirez on first. The strategy worked for Leyland as Casey flied out, Drew struck out, and Varitek flied out. Seay came back out for the 7th and got the last lefty, Jacoby Ellsbury to also fly out. So, while Casey batted well in Lowell's spot (going 4 for 4 and scoring a run) it did make the lineup vulnerable to a good lefty reliever.

Julio Lugo's name appeared quite a bit. In the 4th, he barely escaped a throwing error as the ump missed a close call in the Sox' favor, but in the 5th he made a great play on a tough shot getting Gary Sheffield out at first. Lugo also contributed with the bat, going 2 for 3 with a double and an RBI, and a stolen base. Oh, wait, the ump missed that one too, this time not in ourfavor as Lugo was called out stealing. My read of the replay was that he was safe by a beat.

The real trouble, again, was an offense that still cannot get going. The Sox had 9 hits, but only scored 2 runs, with the top of the order (Pedroia, Youk, and Ortiz) going a combined 0 for 12. Papi still can't hit his way out of a paper bag, and it is hurting our run production.

Through 9 games this season the Sox are 4-5 and have been outscored 41-30! Consider last season at this point they had outscored opponents 43-28. They were 5-4 at this point last year, so it is not like they have suddenly dropped off. But, the bats need to get going, particularly the bat of Big Papi.

Sox Rising, Yankees Slipping

Doesn't everything look a little brighter today? The Sox held a terrific Opening Day, exorcising one last demon - bringing out Bill Buckner to throw out the first pitch to the ever-loved Dwight Evans (Deeewwwyy). After all the pomp and circumstance, they got down to an excellent ball game.

Dice-K Matsuzaka was masterful. His command was perfect, and he kept Detroit batters off balance all day. Dice-K has now pitched in 3 straight opening day games. That's got to be a record. The Sox have won all three of those games. We all hoped that Dice-K's second season with the Sox would work out a lot like Josh Beckett's second season with them. So far so good. Could we have two Cy Young candidates in the rotation this year? The bullpen did just as well with Manny Delcarmen shaking off the memory of the grand slam he gave up to Frank Thomas and pitching 1 1/3 scoreless innings to hand it over to Hideki Okajima who wrapped up the win for his fellow countryman. Okajima seems to be picking up where he left off last year, and promises to be an anchor in the bullpen for the Sox.

The offense looked better, with JD Drew staying hot, while Youlikis, Varitek, Pedroia, and (yes) Julio Lugo all had multi-hit games. Manny attracted the most attention with his (ill-advised) decision to stretch a double into a triple. It worked out fine, but let's hope he doesn't try that too often. It was a 1-0 game at the time and he was leading off. The throw actually beat him to third base, but luckily it was off-line and sailed past the third baseman. Glad to see Manny Ramirez being aggressive, but the smarter move would have been to hold up and have a runner at 2nd base with no outs and your 5, 6, and 7 batters coming up.

Big Papi is still struggling a bit, but did come close to launching a grand slam. Hopefully he gets into a groove soon. Word is his knee is still bothering him after off-season surgery. Having him out of the lineup drastically changes things for the offense, so let's hope the knee holds up.

Good news in Pawtucket. We have been less than pleased with the Sox middle relief so far this season. On Monday, Mike Timlin threw 18 pitches in an inning of relief for the PawSox and felt great topping out at 93 mph. He is expected to join the Sox on Friday when the Yankees come to town.

Speaking of the Yankees, things are not looking to upbeat for them right now. The season is still young, so no reason for New Yorkers to start crying into their pinstriped handkerchiefs just yet. But, while the Sox were taming the Tigers at Fenway yesterday, the Yankees were getting schooled in Kansas City. The mighty A-Rod struck out four times in the game! Meanwhile, Derek Jeter will miss a few games with a groin injury and Jorge Posada is on the verge of a possible DL stint for a "dead arm". Meanwhile, rookie sensation Phil Hughes did not fare so well lasting only 3 innings in the game.



So, what does all that mean? Everything is rosy in Red Sox Nation today.

Tonight the Tigers' Jeremy Bonderman will make his first ever start in Fenway Park, matching up against Jon Lester. Lester was brilliant in his last start, and should get an emotional boost from the home crowd. Bonderman is a good pitcher, but the Sox should fare well against him. The only thing I worry about is that the Tiger is due to wake up soon. This team is predicted by many to be the best team in the AL this year. Right now they are winless at 0-7. Can Lester hold them back for one more game? Can Big Papi break out for the home town crowd? Will JD Drew stay hot and carry the team through April? Will Julio Lugo begin a march to challenge Youkilis' error-free streak? He's already one game into it.