Good luck in St. Louis, boys. Dustin Pedroia will be sitting this one out, with good reason. But I expect a nice showing from the other five. My only real hope is that Wake gets into the game and has a nice inning. It's great for him to make the squad at this point in his career.
The Red Sox are sitting in first with a three game lead in the AL East at the break and I see no cause for concern the rest of the way. Our pitching is so good and so deep, occasional bullpen hiccups aside. I really think we're in great shape. We also haven't had the whole offense firing simultaneously all season--Jason Bay is hitting .215 over the past 30 days and Kevin Youkilis is batting .220 over that same span, which is why we've had trouble scoring runs lately. Meanwhile, David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia have carried the load in July. If the top and middle of the order gets hot at once and the pitching keeps doing what they've been doing, we're going to win the division going away. This club is really built for the postseason too, probably even better than the 2004 and 2007 championship teams. It should be a fun ride.
I love the decision to bring Clay Buchholz up for a start right after the break. This accomplishes a couple of things. Theo and Tito love to find ways to grab extended patches of rest for their starting pitchers, and this is a brilliant way to do that. It also lets Clay come up to the big club, albeit briefly, which is something he deserves after the season he has had in Pawtucket so far. I hope that he is so lights out that they have to consider finding a way to keep him on the roster. This is kind of an unbelievable situation to be in--having so many good pitchers that we literally don't know what is the best way to employ them. A lot of teams in MLB are one injury away from devastation, and it's very comforting to know that we are not in that same spot.
Bring on the second half.
No comments:
Post a Comment