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April 10, 2008 »

Detroit ends seven-game skid with 7-2 win over Sox

After generating just 15 runs combined over its first seven losses, Detroit tagged Boston’s pitchers for 10 hits, en route to a 7-2 victory before a Fenway crowd of 3,7190.

Jon Lester’s debut against the Tigers was a rocky one. Failing to record at least one strike out for the first time in 29 games (28 starts), he dropped to 1-2 after giving up four runs, all of them earned, on four hits over 5.1 innings.

Meanwhile, Detroit right-hander Jeremy Bonderman – who entered last night’s game with a 5.68 ERA - extended his winning streak against the Sox to four games, scattering five hits over five innings for his first victory of the 2008 campaign.

Posted by Carolyn Thornton  at 9:52 PM to Thornton | Permalink

Timlin sharp in Pawtucket

Mike Timlin just made quick work of his second rehab appearance in Pawtucket.

Timlin retired Lehigh Valley on three routine ground balls in the sixth inning in a scoreless game. He threw 10 pitches, seven for strikes.

There is warm-up action in the Pawtucket bullpen, indicating Timlin probably will not come out for a second inning.

Posted by Paul Kenyon  at 7:50 PM to Projo Sox Crawl | Permalink

Pregame This and That, April 9

-- Curt Schilling remains in the background, continuing his rehabilitation on his ailing right shoulder. Manager Terry Francona said The Big Schill is chomping at the bit to play catch, the first in a series of many steps toward returning to the mound, but that he is "not there" just yet in the estimation of Mike Reinhold, the team's rehab co-ordinator and assistant trainer.

-- Jacoby Ellsbury is back in the starting lineup in center field, putting Coco Crisp back on the bench.

A look at the box scores would indicate that the two are being platooned, with Ellsbury starting against right-handed pitching and Crisp starting against left-handers, but Francona said that when they have played has partly been determined by various circumstances, such as days off. Francona said he doesn't want either one to sit for an extended period of time this early in the year.

-- David Ortiz is batting a woeful .103 (3 for 29) with one homer and three RBI. He did just miss crushing a grand slam into the right-field corner when his drive into the wind fell short Tuesday afternoon at Fenway Park, but Francona said Ortiz's "foundation" at the plate isn't quite where the designated hitter would like it to be just yet.

Francona didn't seem to think his early season struggles are strictly a function of the offseason surgery Ortiz underwent to repair damage in his right knee.

--Steven Krasner

Posted by Steven Krasner  at 4:36 PM | Permalink

Colon Update

Bartolo Colon, who felt discomfort from a strained right oblique at some point after his start for Pawtucket last week, was examined by Boston's training staff today.

The portly right-hander is "still a little bit tender," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona.

"That's not unexpected. He will not be allowed to (throw) until he is not tender," said Francona. "We'll turn a negative into a positive and he can do extra cardio work until he can get back into a throwing role."

Francona didn't directly answer the question of whether Colon has shed a few pounds since signing with the Sox this spring as a free agent. He indicated weight isn't the most important issue with Colon's conditioning.

"We just want to get him into the best pitching shape we can so he can repeat his delivery," said Francona.

Francona said Colon has been bothered by a similar oblique injury twice in his career. One time it kept him out of action for seven days; the other time it forced him to the sidelines for 20 days.

-- Steven Krasner

Posted by Steven Krasner  at 4:28 PM | Permalink

Starting Lineups, April 9

Red Sox

Pedroia 2b
Youkilis 1b
Ortiz dh
Ramirez lf
Lowell 3b
Drew rf
Varitek c
Ellsbury cf
Lugo ss

Lester p

TIGERS

Rodriguez c
Polanco 2b
Sheffield dh
Ordonez rf
Cabrera 3b
Guillen 1b
Renteria ss
Thames lf
Inge cf

Bonderman p

-- Steven Krasner

Posted by Steven Krasner  at 4:26 PM | Permalink

Thursday's Sox-Tigers game switched to alternate channels by NESN

Because of a conflict with Thursday night's Boston Bruins playoff game, NESN is switching the Red Sox-Tigers game to alternate channels.

In Rhode Island, the alternate channels are:

On Cox Cable -- Cox3
On Verizon FIOS -- Channel 93
On DirecTV -- Channel 660
On the Dish Network -- Channel 444

The Bruins-Canadiens game will be broadcast on NESN.

Posted by Art Martone  at 4:25 PM | Permalink

Red Sox-Tigers key stats

-The Red Sox are 3-0 in games played in the United States, and 1-4 in games played outside the country.
-Kevin Youkilis is 9 for 18 over is hast five games and is now ninth in the American League in batting average, at .400.
-J.D. Drew has a 10-game hitting streak dating back to last season, during which he is batting .432 with three home runs.
-Tonight is Dominican Heritage Night at Fenway; the Dominican national anthem will be played along with the U.S. anthem before the game.
-The Red Sox have won 17 of their last 21 games against Detroit at Fenway Park.
-Tuesday's win was the Red Sox' 1000th all-time against the Tigers; they also have 1,000-plus wins all-time over the Baltimore Orioles/St. Louis Browns and the Oakland/Kansas City/Philadelphia Athletics.
-Jonathan Papelbon has struck out the last six batters he has faced.
-Jeremy Bonderman has won his last three decisions against the Red Sox.

Tigers vs. Jon Lester
-Lester has never faced the Tigers, and only two Detroit hitters have faced Lester: Miguel Cabrera is 1 for 3 lifetime; Edgar Renteria is 0 for 2 lifetime with a walk.

Red Sox vs. Jeremy Bonderman
-Sean Casey, 2 for 2 (1.000), BB
-Dustin Pedroia, 2 for 4 (.500), 2B, 3B
-Kevin Cash, 2 for 5 (.400), 2 2B
-Manny Ramirez, 5 for 16 (.313), 2B, HR, 3 BB
-J.D. Drew, 2 for 7 (.286), 3B, BB
-Julio Lugo, 3 for 11 (.273)
-Coco Crisp, 10 for 42 (.238), 3 2B
-Alex Cora, 3 for 14 (.214), 3B, BB
-David Ortiz, 4 for 21 (.190), 2B, HR, 5 BB
-Jason Varitek, 2 for 12 (.167), 2B, 3 BB
-Kevin Youkilis, 0 for 9, 2 BB
-Mike Lowell, 0 for 9
-Bonderman is 3-4 with a 4.58 E.R.A in nine career starts against the Red Sox

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 3:51 PM to Projo Sox Streakers | Permalink

Projo SoxTalk with McAdam: The Opening Day victory

Click the play button below to hear Sean's comments, recorded this morning. He discusses the struggling Tigers, Daisuke Matsuzaka, J.D. Drew and Bill Buckner.

Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:

On the Tigers: "I think it's O.K. to get worried now, if you're Jim Leyland. When you go more than a week into the season and are still without your first win, then that spells trouble, particularly when you're in a division with a team that came within a few outs of the pennant last year -- the Indians -- and other teams that are kind of upstarts, like the Royals."

Matsuzaka attacking the hitters: "I think the problem last year came when he got himself in a situation where he fell behind so often that he was throwing the fastball on hitter's counts, and of course that spells trouble for a pitcher. But they clearly seem to try [this year] to get ahead more with the fastball and let other pitches do the work once he does that."

J.D. Drew's fast start: "If you go back and look at his April last year, the first two or three weeks were pretty good. And the hope if you're the Red Sox is that he continues that hot start this season, and doesn't dip the way he did last year."

On the Buckner tribute: "I thought the time to have Buckner back would have been for the 2005 ceremony, when you're trying to wash away all the sins of the past and put all the curse stuff behind you. To me, yesterday, it seemed out of place. I think the 2007 world championship that they were celebrating yesterday, and I don't want to classify it as just another championship, but it seemed to me that the time for that would have been a few years ago. And I think people forget that Buckner has already been forgiven, back in 1990 when he returned as a player for the second part of his career with the Red Sox. I thought it was a little bit of wallowing in the Red Sox' tragic past, when they should have put all of that behind them."

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 12:24 PM to Projo SoxTalk with Sean McAdam | Permalink

Baseball Today: Wednesday, April 9

Journal photo / Mary Murphy

FLAG DAY: It was a day for celebration of the past. A championship season (above). An old friend whose blemished history was wiped clean in one stirring, emotional moment. (projo.com) Old champions from other Boston sports. (Boston Herald) But in the end, says Sean McAdam, the biggest news from Opening Day was the Red Sox closing the book on 2007 and buckling down to the task at hand, which involves making 2008 a success. They got off on the right foot with a 5-0 win over the Tigers that Joe McDonald reports was a living example of the simple mantras -- play them one at a time, don’t make excuses, don’t get too high, don’t get too low -- that these Sox live by. It was helped, of course, by sterling pitching from Daisuke Matsuzaka, whose day was profiled by Jim Donaldson and whose performance was analyzed by Steven Krasner.

Tonight it's back to normal: 7:05 p.m. start, no pregame ceremonies, nothing but baseball. McAdam sums it up perfectly: "Today is New Year's Day, the first day of the rest of the baseball season."

BUCKED UP: The Red Sox' uniformed personnel liked all the pomp and circumstance -- the flag over the left-field wall, the handing out of championship rings, the Boston Pops, the flyover, the raising of the 2007 World Series championship pennant -- but the part of the day that touched them the most was the reception received by Buckner. Kevin Youkilis and Terry Francona share their thoughts with McDonald.

BIGGER AND BETTER: Curt Schilling lines up his four championship rings -- from the 2007, '04 and '01 World Series, and the 1993 NLCS -- and shows how they seem to grow each time. (38pitches.com)

MANNY BEING MANNY: After a tough weekend in Toronto, Manny Delcarmen got back on track with a strong, 1 1/3-inning performance. McAdam has the particulars.

HERE AND THERE ON OPENING DAY: Though the Boston Globe reports there were vendors selling alcohol in selected portion of the stands for the first time at Fenway Park yesterday, I remember beer being sold in the seats for a brief period in 1978 or so . . . The Globe also chronicles the number local celebrities who were on hand for the show.

FINALLY: Neil Diamond, whose Sweet Caroline is a Fenway fixture -- for better or worse -- will hold a concert here on Aug. 23. (Boston Globe)

THANKS: The slumping Tigers, now an incredible 0-7, may have been the best Opening Day medicine the Sox could have received. Krasner details some of their gaffes and shortcomings in his Inside The Game feature, and talked with Jim Leyland about their struggles afterwards. He also talked to David Ortiz and Mike Lowell, who say the Tigers are too good to continue to play this bad.

LONG-TERM DAMAGE: According to AccuScore.com, the Tigers' 0-7 start now has them likely to finish 82-79 and miss the playoffs. (yahoo.com) Baseball Musing's David Pinto calculates that the odds of a playoff team losing seven games in a row is 0.35%. FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal isn't ready to bury the Bengals just yet, but says Detroit's weaknesses can't be "easily dismissed."

MINOR DEAL: Christian Lara was once regarded as the Red Sox' top shortstop prospect. But after six struggling minor-league seasons in which he seems to have stalled at Class A -- during which time his star was eclipsed by Jed Lowrie -- the Sox gave up on him, shipping him to the Dodgers for reliever Eric Hull. (mlb.com) Hull's address for most of this summer is likely to be One Ben Mondor Way, Pawtucket.

CLOSING UP: When Hull gets to the PawSox bullpen, he'll find the closer's role being handled not by prospect Craig Hansen or big-league veteran Dan Kolb, but surprise choice Lee Gronkiewicz. Paul Kenyon profiles the unlikely anchor of the Pawtucket relief corps.

WINNERS IN ANOTHER WAY: The Gazette's Katie Holmes -- disgusted by the behavior of the Rogers Centre crowd on Opening Night last Friday -- says "The Red Sox may have lost the series against the Jays, but the Sox fans would win in a test of loyalty and etiquette [against Jays fans] any day."

GODSPEED: The Diamondbacks' Doug Davis made his last start before undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer, which is expected to sideline him for at least a month. (East Valley Tribune) Davis, whose form of cancer has a 97 percent cure rate, says he doesn't want to be seen as a hero. (Arizona Republic) Yahoo.com's Tim Brown talks to two baseball men -- Joe Torre and Brett Butler -- who survived cancer surgery of their own in the 1990s and are still in the game.

PICK YOUR POISON: The glass-is-half-empty crowd's cup runneth over with the Yankees. The list of downers starts with Derek Jeter's strained left quadricep muscle (New York Daily News), and just grows from there: Jorge Posada's dead arm (New York Post), a miserable start by Phil Hughes in a loss to Kansas City (New York Daily News), Alex Rodriguez' four strikeouts in said loss (New York Daily News) and the fact they've just embarked on a stretch in which they'll play 18 of 20 on the road. (Newsday) The Yanks hope to have Jeter back in time to play the Red Sox at Fenway this weekend, but it looks like they're summoning Triple-A shortstop Alberto Gonzalez as a reinforcement in any case. (New York Post)

IDIOT WARNING: Our own fantasy guy, Michael Salfino, writes on SNY.tv that Johnny Damon is beginning to look like he's washed up.

END OF THE ROAD? He has one blown save, two losses and a 12.27 ERA, all on top of an historic meltdown in extra innings in Colorado last October that cost his team a playoff spot. So SI.com's Jon Heyman wonders: Is it time for the Padres to remove Hall of Famer-in-waiting Trevor Hoffman from the closer's role?

AND YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE THE BALL TO . . . WHO? There are cries for closer Joe Borowski's head in Cleveland, but the Plain-Dealer's Bud Shaw warns that the alternatives may be no better.

PARTY'S OVER: The festive atmosphere at yesterday's sold-out home opener in St. Petersburg -- where Rays fans have hope for the first time since, well, ever -- was tempered by a) a 6-5 defeat at the hands of the Mariners and b) the loss of highly regarded right-handed Matt Garza, who left the game in the third inning and went immediately to the disabled list because of radial nerve irritation. (St. Petersburg Times)

RETURN OF A LEGEND: Nolan Ryan was part of the pregame festivities at the Rangers' opener and was disappointed the team didn't make a better showing for the sellout crowd. (Dallas Morning News) Even so, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Jennifer Floyd Engle has 20 reasons why Ranger fans should be excited.

EMPTY MARKET: SI.com's Tom Verducci says the new practice of tying up young players with long-term contracts -- like the Blue Jays did over the weekend with Alex Rios and Aaron Hill -- means that teams which "think they can rebuild through free agency will find mostly older and second-tier players in that market."

IT AIN'T OVER: Baseball's protestations that it has the performance-enhancing drug scandal under control ring hollow when news hits that the Braves' top prospect, center fielder Jordan Schafer, has been handed a 50-game suspension after testing positive for HGH use. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

MOVING FORWARD: Kevin Lidle, twin brother of the late Cory Lidle -- the Yankee pitcher who was killed in a plane crash in October 2006 -- is back in baseball as a scout for the Marlins. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

TOURIST MAGNET: Some of the Marlins were stunned that tour buses now stop at their hotel in Washington, the Mayflower, because that's where ex-N.Y. Governor Eliot Spitzer went for his now-famous trysts. (Palm Beach Post)

WE'RE BITTER ENOUGH FOR YOU: Dusty Baker says he has no hard feelings against the Cubs for his dismissal two years ago. But lots of his friends do. (Chicago Tribune)

REPEAT AFTER ME . . . Someone has to explain the concept of Murphy's Law to the Diamondbacks' Mark Reynolds. (East Valley Tribune)

YESTERDAY'S BEST: Break up the Orioles! (Baltimore Sun) . . . Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth helped the Phillies spoil the Mets' home opener at Shea Stadium. (Philadelphia Daily News) But any notion that the Phils have a hex over the Mets is "[crap]," according to ex-Met and current Phillie Billy Wagner. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

HERE AND THERE: In a Q-and-A with readers, A's beat writer Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle says she expects Oakland to trade both Joe Blanton and Rich Harden this year, with the Yankees and Mets listed as possible suitors . . . The A's, meanwhile, finally disclosed that it was back soreness which compelled them to skip Harden's turn in the rotation (San Francisco Chronicle) . . . The Padres are breathing a sigh of relief, as what was feared to be a serious elbow injury for catcher Michael Barrett, one which may have required reconstructive surgery, proved to be only a sprain. (North County Times) He will, however, have to go on the DL, and the team has contacted veteran catcher Damian Miller, currently a free agent, as a potential replacement (San Diego Union-Tribune) . . . Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez will sit out for three days because of his balky ankle (Los Angeles Times) . . . Jimmy Rollins, however, says he won't miss any time because of his sore ankle (Philadelphia Daily News) . . . Craig Wilson's back with the Pirates after signing a minor-league deal (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) . . . Darryl Strawberry is back with the Mets as a part-time television analyst (New York Times) . . . Orlando Hernandez flew back to New York from the Mets' camp in Port St. Lucie to have his sore foot looked at. (Newsday)

OLD FRIENDS: For the second time in three save opportunities, Eric Gagne surrendered a game-tying home run in the ninth inning. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) But, also for the second time, the Brewers rallied and won the game (Incidentally, the Brewers' old closer, Francisco Cordero, told the Journal-Sentinel the team could have kept him had it agreed to talk contract extension last spring) . . . In his weekly radio interview on Boston's ESPN 890, transcribed by Joe Haggerty on his Hacks With Haggs blog, Peter Gammons wonders if being off steroids for two years is the reason Gagne is pitching so poorly . . . Joel Piniero did well (six innings, two runs) in a rehab start at Memphis (rotoworld.com) . . . Wily Mo Pena, recovering from an oblique strain, went 0-for-1 with a walk and a strikeout in an extended spring-training game at the Nationals' camp (Washington Times) . . . Dave Roberts may have surgery on a sore knee, an injury that prompted the Giants to put him on the disabled list. (San Francisco Chronicle)

-- ART MARTONE

Posted by Art Martone  at 6:33 AM | Permalink