In an exciting game, the Red Sox beat the Orioles, 6-5 in 11 innings. It looked like it was a day for Baltimore, but the whole thing turned in the 9th inning, when the Orioles gave up 4 runs and sent it all into 11 innings. Meanwhile, the Red Sox almost lost the series. But that’s ok, because they’re winning most of their games otherwise. You can also tell that they’re having a great year because the Sox will probably have several players in the All Star Game. This is a team going places this year, battling it out well in the competitive AL East and then we can make sure that we are there for all the action. While the Yankees have been sort of floating near the top, the Red Sox are pushing ahead too. Let’s do it!

The Red Sox shifted their lineup slightly for last night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles. But almost no one noticed, because it didn’t end up mattering much. They won convincingly enough, and probably would have done the same with the old lineup. JD Drew was put into the leadoff spot and Dustin Pedroia was bumped down to the #2 slot for yesterday’s game in order to shake Pedroia out of his hitting difficulties of the last week or so. It seemed to work out well. Drew nearly hit a cycle for the evening, missing only a double. It was a great evening for him, although it could have been better. He joked that he almost ran right down the middle of the field in order to get his double. Nicely done Sox!

John Smoltz has made his first start of the season since being brought back into the MLB world. The start gave us some sense of where he is in his recouperation. He has some promising parts. His fastball seems there. His split finger got better throughout the game. He had quite a bit of trouble, however, that made the team lose badly last night, 9-3. He gave up quite a few runs in a rather limited start. Again he is going to be pushing himself. He says he feels better and it felt like the old days. He looks forward to playing the best players in the coming weeks and months. We certainly hope that Smoltz will be continuing to feel better and hopefully he can start getting more stops this year!

Daisuke Matsuzaka has been sidelined. He is officially on the 15 day DL right now, but the coach believes that he will be out for a significantly longer period of time. He has some injured muscles and a lot of other problems with mechanics this year. In his last outing, he gave up 6 runs in 4 innings and was pulled. Clearly he’s having a few different kinds of problems, so he’ll be off for awhile, while they fix his injuries and retrain him in some ways. He will be back in the rotation at some point in the indefinite future. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are ready to put John Smoltz in his position on the rotation, where he will be pitching a little later this week. Hopefully this will work out well down the road with Smoltz and Matsuzaka doing well again.

The Red Sox have won many of their recent games, but yesterday against the Florida Marlins, a lot of rain stopped them from having the best kind of day. They were unable to win the game and lost 2-1 when the game was first delayed in the 6th and then 2 hours later it was actually called. Perhaps they had some great playing in store for innings 7-9, but this is baseball. This is how baseball works sometimes and they’ll get back into it during the next game. But don’t worry, the loss wasn’t due to the team mascots. Fish do better with water, but it’s not like you can’t wear socks in the rain.

The Red Sox are doing even better than they were at this time last year. And they almost made it to the Series then, so you can imagine what their chances this year might be. This is a strong team that seems to have gotten past the early injury problems and has also found a lot of different ways to score runs everyday. Their pitching is also quite impressive. One commentator has described the situation in the AL East as similar to being behind the leader of an auto race. The air behind them seems heavier and more loaded with fumes. Thus it is harder to catch up. This seems to be what the Yankees are feeling right now, because they are slipping further behind with each passing day.

Chien-Ming Wang put in yet another terrible appearance yesterday for the Yankees against the Red Sox and lost the game. The Red Sox propelled themselves back into the first place position and they will be able to get themselves into an exciting battle for the rest of the season. Wang put up four earned runs in just over 2 innings of work and was promptly taken out. The pitcher has a 21.61 ERA right now, with only a few good relief innings pitched over the last few months. The Red Sox, however, put up some very good numbers and won in more-or-less the usual way. They are having fun in an AL East that looks much less competitive with them than it would on its own. Thoughts?

When Matsuzaka takes on the best in the AL, he often has run into difficulty this year. This is the biggest challenge that people in the Red Sox world are starting to be concerned about. This pitcher used to win almost every outing and had a 3.72 ERA, but this year he has been even less than good. He can’t pitch nearly as much nor can he get the strikeouts the way he needs them. He can’t pitch 6 innings before the team needs to take him out. The team is starting to look into what his problem might be and it’s going to be interesting to see what they decide to do. They could bring in John Smoltz or Brad Penney to take his place in the rotation. It wont be clear for awhile yet, whether a change will be made, but perhaps it could happen over the All Star break?

The Detroit Tigers threw the game away. Dontrelle Willis, who has been suffering what is termed as an anxiety disorder, had a horrendous 3rd inning against the Red Sox yesterday. He hit a batter and then walked four. The Tigers have lost 8 of the last 12 games and are struggling. The Red Sox, however, were able to hold up well yesterday and jsut keep on coasting. They are good players and swept the 3 game series yesterday with a 6-3 win. It’s going to be a good ride, it looks like and they are now tied with the Yankees in first place. We knew it would come this far, and it’s going to be fun to see them push forward with the old style rivalry with the Yanks.

Now that the Red Sox have completed one third of the season so far and it’s looking pretty good right now. There are many people who were ready to write them off after some bad losing streaks as well as several different injuries to key players. It’s still an issue, but the team has weathered that storm pretty well at this point. They are several games over .500 and are only a game or two behind the Yankees in a tough division. After the Blue Jays dropped back and the Tampa Bay Rays got off to a rough start, the Eastern Division will remain competitive, at least with New York and Boston as well as probably some of these other teams.