Over the last ten days, the Boston Red Sox have won series against New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins, Philadelphia Phillies, and Tampa Bay Rays. Last night the Red Sox completed their three game sweep of the AL East leading Tampa Bay Rays with a 11-3 whooping in St. Petersburg. Red hot Adrian Beltre had six RBI’s on four hits, raising his batting average to .341.  The Red Sox pitching has turned around recently not giving up more than three runs in more since their 7-6 win over the Yankees on May 17th. Designated hitter David Ortiz has come out of his slump finally, and looks to be hitting the baseball better than ever. Big Papi has raised his batting average from .143 to .266 just since April 30th. Clay Buscholz, Jon Lester, and John Lackey seem to have their stuff together after a rough start to the season as well. The Red Sox now have a a number of series against the likes of the Royals, the Athletics, Orioles, and Indians. With a schedule like that, the Red Sox could very well be challenging the Rays for the top spot in the AL East.

The good news is this: The WBC is over, allowing for no more opportunity for their players to continue getting injured before the season even begins. Now the bad news. It’s not tragic or disastrous. Just a little bit melancholy. Curt Schilling has retired from baseball. This news comes from his blog, which mentioned the news this morning. Immediately, other players, managers and fans started commenting on this event, saying that it was quite a lot of fun for us to watch him all these years, and he’s also given us some great games. We wish him the best in his retirement, and hopefully he can stay in baseball in some way as he moves forward.