Red Sox 8, Orioles 6

Joy to the world, the Sox are .500. It was thanks to a struggling Tommy Hunter, a red hot Mike Aviles, and some contributions from Pedroia, Ortiz, and Middlebrooks.

Clay Buchholz sucks. He has no confidence out there. Once one or two things go wrong, and he disintegrates. He falls into quicksand and can't free himself. If not for a double-play ball in the 3rd, he might have been tagged for 6 or 7 runs. Nevertheless, he still allowed 5 in 5.1 innings. Far from impressive.

Ideally, I'd put Bard in the bullpen and Buchholz in Pawtucket until he sorted himself out. Unfortunately, the Sox don't have replacements for these struggling SPs. We'll just have to endure both of them until Daisuke returns. Then decide which one to exile.

I don't see much progress with Buchholz. He's still laboring through innings. He got some fortunate bounces last night, and that helped. But without those bounces, he gives up 7 and doesn't go 5 innings.

But this was a good win, nonetheless. Hunter seemed like a guy the Sox should hit. And they did that. And not only are the Sox .500, they are tied with the Yankees for 4th place. Cue the duckboats.

Doubront faces Brian Matusz tonight. Matusz has had mostly bad starts with a few good starts mixed in. He's a lefty, so he has a shot against the Sox. But they should get a few across the plate against him.

-The Captain

Red Sox 5, Phillies 1

Last year when the Sox played in Philadelphia, it might have been a more revealing series than we thought back then, or that seems apparent from the way the season progressed. The Sox lost 2 of 3 in Philly last year, after just having lost 2 of 3 in Pittsburgh. Then they whined. They complained about how much of a disadvantage playing in an NL park was, how much it hurt to lose the DH, et cetera.

It was a whiny sense of entitlement that was eventually forgotten because the Sox went on a 37-18 (.673) stretch of baseball after leaving Philadelphia. Then September started. Then the losing. Then the excuses again. Then September ended, and so did the season. Then came more excuses. Adrian Gonzalez blamed God. David Ortiz blamed the official scorer. The fans blamed Popeye's Chicken. The organization blamed Francona.

So maybe this time, the Red Sox' trip to Philadelphia would show some more desirable character traits. David Ortiz held a players only meeting a few weeks ago, after Josh Beckett was lit up by Cleveland. The Sox are 8-2 since that meeting. They went down to Philly and beat a hot Phillies team, fair and square. Maybe we are seeing a new kind of character from this team.

Beckett's last two outings have been impressive. 7.2 innings yesterday, allowing 1 run, walking 2, scattering 7 hits, striking out 5. He was brilliant for the first 7 innings, then tailed off in the 8th. He's allowed 1 run in his last 14.2 innings.

Mike Aviles has been a very pleasant surprise in 2012. I think it's safe to say that the organization was right about him and Bobby Valentine was wrong. He's hitting .275, he hit his 6th homerun Friday night, his 7th on Saturday, and his 8th yesterday. He's 3rd on the Sox with 27 RBI. This is very good offensive production from short-stop.

David Ortiz wasn't a liability in the field. He fielded his position quite respectably yesterday.

I honestly don't know how much the Red Sox' character has changed from last year to this. Winning tends to hide character flaws, losing tends to over-expose them. For instance, if the Sox were winning games and Beckett were pitching well, his golfing trip wouldn't have been that big of a deal.

There are still some things that irk me about this team. In the 8th, Jimmy Rollins advanced from 1st to 2nd on a "throwing error" charged to Daniel Nava on a sac-fly. The throw should have been cut off before it reached home, as Pete Orr (no relation to Bobby, although he is from Ontario and wears the #4, which I respect tremendously) was clearly going to be safe. Beckett could have cut the throw off, holding Rollins at first. Or Beckett could have been backing up the plate. He did neither. He just stood a few feet in front of the plate. And it might have turned into a big play.

What bugs me is that win or lose, this team seems to think that they're good enough that they don't have to get the little things right. They're overly confident. Cocky. When they lose, it's because of something external, like not having a DH. And in their minds, they don't have to play their asses off to win. They're entitled to win.

They have been winning lately. But take it with a grain of salt, Sox fans. The Sox have turned a corner. They've done it before. The problem is, once you turn that corner, you have to stay straight. It's like quitting smoking. It's commendable, but if you don't remain quit, then it's not that impressive.

The Sox are in Baltimore tonight. With a good series, they can claw themselves out of the cellar. With a bad one, they can dig their hole even deeper. They have the shovels. Will they dig themselves out or dig themselves deeper? Buchholz faces Tommy Hunter. Hunter seems like a guy they should hit.

-The Captain

Red Sox 5, Mariners 0

Since Josh Beckett was booed off the field last Thursday, the Sox rotation had made 4 very good starts in a row. If Beckett didn't make it 5 against a weak Seattle lineup, on his birthday, and in front of Tim Wakefield, then I think people would have spat on him as he left the field. In other words, there was no excuse to not pitch well today. He certainly hadn't been strained in his previous start. Hell, he'd only thrown 2.1 innings in May.

He did his job yesterday. He struck out 9 Mariners in 7 innings, making quick work of a lineup that has 0 players hitting over .300, and 2 hitting below .200. Only Ichiro gave Beckett a problem with a pair of singles and a pair of stolen bases. Beckett only threw 93 pitches in his 7 innings, and easily could have gone deeper into the game.

That was unnecessary. The bullpen was fresh thanks to Lester's CG on Monday. And the Sox had a 4-0 lead. With the way Beckett was pitching, and the way Seattle was missing, a 4-0 score looked like a 14-0 score. Ortiz hit his 8th homer of the season. Aviles had an RBI double. Middlebrooks had an RBI single. Aviles added another RBI double in the 8th to erase any doubt.

The Sox ended their homestand on a positive note, with 5 straight wins. They're still very streaky. They were streaky last year, too. Streaky is the mark of inconsistent starting pitching. Good SPs prevent losing streaks. Streaky teams might win 5 straight (the Sox have done that twice), but they'll also lose 5 straight (the Sox have done that twice, as well).

Even after winning 5 straight, the Sox are still 2 games under .500.

So they've made steps. They have more steps to go. Beckett and the Sox are very similar. Inconsistent and unpredictable. We've seen brilliance from Beckett before. That's never been his problem. His problem has always been consistency.

The Sox go down to Florida for a two game series against the Rays. This will be a good test for them. Tonight Buchholz faces 3-0 Jeremy Hellickson. Unlike Buchholz, Hellickson has actually earned his wins.

-The Captain

Supporting Cast carrying Sox

Overall, I think we've all been quite disappointed by how poorly the Sox have played this season. Even the most optimistic Sox fans now have a generally negative feeling for this club. But there are a few bright spots, a few pleasant surprises. And if not for them, the Sox would be in even worse shape.

Two of these guys are legitimate stars. Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz. Pedroia is hitting .319 with 18 RBI, 25 runs scored, 5 homers, and a .381 OBP. Ortiz has knocked in 25 runs, is hitting .348, has 7 homers, an OBP of .421 and an OPS of 1.026. He showed up to Spring Training in great shape, and his performance has reflected his desire to be a better player.

Apart from these two guys, the big names on the Sox have been disappointing. Adrian Gonzalez hasn't had many big hits. We'll give Youkilis and Ellsbury a pass due to injury. And then on the mound, Beckett might be the most hated man in Boston, Lester is nowhere near as elite as he claims he should be considered, and Buchholz has 4 wins but an ERA of 8.31.

It's been the supporting cast that's carried the load for the Sox.

Ryan Sweeney is hitting .333, with a .364 OBP. This guy was a 4th outfielder for the A's. And now he has the second best average on the Boston Red Sox. He's being paid $1.75 million.

Cody Ross has 23 RBI, second on the team behind Ortiz. His average isn't good (.254), but he's hitting for power with 6 homers (2nd on the team) and 7 doubles. He's only making $3 million.

Mike Aviles, who almost didn't make the starting lineup, is third on the team with 21 RBI. He's hit 5 homeruns. His previous career high was 10. And he's only 30 RBI shy of matching his career high of 51. He's making $1.2 million.

Sweeney, Ross, and Aviles are paid a total of $5.95 million. That's about 4% of the Sox' total payroll of $146.4 million. But they've knocked in 55 runs, or 32.4% of the Sox total RBI.

Will Middlebrooks has exploded in 2012. He's already hit 4 homers and knocked in 13 runs in only 10 games. He's making $480,000. Add his RBIs to Sweeney, Ross, and Aviles, and that's 40% of the team's runs knocked in, by only $6.43 million of payroll. That's less than a third of what Adrian Gonzalez gets paid.

Felix Doubront makes $484,000. The 5 pitchers that are currently in the Sox rotation make a total of $30.7 million. More than half ($17 million) of that goes to Beckett.

Doubront isn't a Cy Young Award candidate. But he's 3-1 with 4 Quality Starts, a 4.46 ERA, more innings than Beckett, higher K/9 than Beckett, and much more consistency than Beckett. Doubront has not missed a start. He is worth $484,000, and then some.

Beckett makes more than 35 times as much as Doubront. More than twice as much as Lester. The Sox don't pay Lester and Buchholz much compared to what our expectations of them were. But they've still been disappointing. None of them have an ERA below 4.

At the start of the year, I thought Ross was a joke, Sweeney would be a serviceable 4th outfielder, Aviles was a defensive liability, and Middlebrooks was in AAA Pawtucket. Now they're responsible for 40% of the team's RBIs. I thought Doubront might manage to be a not-so-bad 5th starter. But he has as many Quality Starts as any other starting pitcher.

I have two points I want to make with all this data. The first is that there are some players on this team that are worth rooting for. Sweeney, Ross, Doubront, Middlebrooks and Aviles are hungry, hard-working players. And I enjoy seeing them making the most of the opportunity they have found here. Also, Ortiz and Pedroia are busting their ass to produce for this team.

The second point I want to make is that the "stars" on this team, particularly in the rotation, aren't pulling their weight. Their weight is being pulled by the supporting cast. Watching this team play is like watching a movie with the star actors mailing in their scenes, and the supporting guys stealing the show. So maybe in the future, instead of big budget blockbuster action-films loaded with big names, the Sox should try to find more Paul Giamatti types. Quality players with talent and motivation.

I miss Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, and Kevin Millar. Sweeney, Ross, and Aviles remind me of them. They're just overshadowed by clowns like Beckett and no-show stars like Gonzalez.

-The Captain

Another Lost Weekend for the Sox

Baltimore first baseman Chris Davis went 2 innings, allowing 0 runs, 2 hits, and stuck out 2. Adrian Gonzalez and Jarrod Saltalamacchia were struck out by a first baseman. A first baseman got a pitching win against the Sox. That's how bad things are.

The Red Sox lost all three of their games to the Orioles, but it felt like four due to the length of Sunday's loss. In fact, the Fenway Park grounds crew is still cleaning up all the runners the Sox left in scoring position during the series.

I gave Clay Buchholz a pass for April. He's started slow in the past, so he gets a Mulligan for that month. It's May now. No more free passes. It's time to send him down I-95 to Pawtucket and let him work out his problems there. He's making too many mistakes. I wouldn't mind giving him one more start in Boston, but it has to be a good start. Not just decent, not just solid, I'm talking 7 innings, 2 runs, 5 hits good. Otherwise, it's Triple-A for Clay.

In extra inning losses, the tendency is to look at all the scoring opportunities that weren't capitalized on. The Sox went 2 for 9 with runners in scoring position. One more hit in those situations and the game ends in 9 innings or 12 innings or 15 innings. But it was the starting pitching that cost the Sox the game. It was Clay's 3.2 innings. That's why Darnell McDonald was on the mound in the 17th, because the bullpen had pitched 12.1 innings of relief at that point. And had only allowed an unearned run.

If Clay pitches better, the Sox don't even get into an extra inning situation. They can win in 9 innings. Even if they do go extras, McDonald doesn't have to pitch for another 3 innings.

Will Middlebrooks hit a Grand Slam, and has done well since his call up. But what the hell is he doing not running down the line on a ball that's 50/50 fair or foul? Who does this 23 year old, #64 wearing kid think he is?

It's the type of attitude that a large number of the Sox seem to have. Middlebrooks will fit right in with that crap.

Then the other half of the team is pushing too hard. Aviles was caught-stealing twice. Pedroia was caught also. The Sox are 8 for 13 when trying to steal based, which simply isn't good enough. These caught-stealing outs are free outs given to opponents. It's better to stay at first than to steal second base 60% of the time and get thrown out 40% of the time. The out is much more valuable than the base.

Speaking of pushing too hard, why the hell was Aaron Cook allowed to go back into the game on Saturday? He got his legs sliced up, then comes back out for his next shift like it was Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Don't get me wrong, it was extremely refreshing to see a pitcher with guts (as opposed to Josh "the Blister" Beckett, who Cook was replacing that day), but we also saw other parts of Cook's internal anatomy that day. And I think the Sox risked too much by letting him resume the game.

The Sox need pitching, but they need it for 5 more months, not 5 more innings in a game in May. They shouldn't have let him go back out there.

I know the Sox are plagued with injury right now. But every team endures injuries. The problem with the Sox is that their healthy players aren't doing their jobs. Buchholz, Lester, Beckett, Aceves. Adrian Gonzalez never seems to get a hit when the Sox really need him to get one. Darnell McDonald's ERA is lower than Mark Melancon's. More than 22 runs lower. Not a single starting pitcher has an ERA below 4.45. Sox starters have a combined ERA of 5.72.

You don't win without starting pitching. Poor starting also exposes an overworked and undertalented bullpen.

Maybe a trip to Kansas City will give the Sox a chance to collect some wins. Doubront faces Jonathan Sanchez tonight. Who isn't very good.

-The Captain

Red Sox 11, Athletics 6

It's been feast or famine for Red Sox hitters this season, and last night David Ortiz and the lineup ate well.

Ortiz hit a pair of solo homeruns, raising his RBI total to 20. Aviles was 2 for 5 with a homerun and 4 RBI. Darnell McDonald was a triple shy of the cycle. Marlon Byrd was 2 for 4 with a double, and is now hitting .333 since being acquired from the Cubs.

Buchholz was fine until the 7th inning. He allowed a run in the 2nd, but it wasn't an ugly inning. He was crisp in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. Then he just fell apart in the 7th. His pitch count was low to start the inning (72). He simply stopped throwing strikes. And his strikes weren't fooling anyone. He only threw 36 balls in the entire game, 11 were in the 7th.

Buchholz showed the promise of potential. We know what he's capable of. Then he collapsed. I think he should get 2 more starts to work out whatever it is he needs to work out. If he can't, then he needs to figure things out in Pawtucket.

Oddly, he's 3-1. Which demonstrates the meaninglessness of the W-L stat.

Felix Doubront is scheduled to face Jarrod Parker tonight. Parker has made 2 career starts in the Majors. The weather might not cooperate, though.

-The Captain

7 Red Sox, 6 Twins

The Red Sox eked out this win and I'll take the win here, but Clay Buchholz is the worst. This was the guy that was untradeable? He's completely hittable, walks a lot of people and just overall bad. Luckily for the Red Sox they were facing Liam Hendricks who's even worse than Buchholz. The Sox bats jumped on Hendricks early and often by an RBI knock by Cody Ross and then a 3 run homerun in the 2nd. And then Salty knocked in 2 more in the 3rd and A Gon knocked in pedroia in the 5th.

The 6th inning was tough for Clay as he let up 4 of his 5 runs. Albers, Morales and Padilla all held down the fort getting into the 9th and of course Aceves did his best to blow it by walking a man and letting up a hit, but was able to get the job done with his 4th save of the season.