(Michael MacDonald September 15, 2009)
Red Sox' Daisuke Matsuzaka reacts to ground ball hit by the Angels' Vladimir Guerrero. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
The Red Sox have finally begun opening up breathing room on their closest wild card rival, the Texas Rangers. As of this writing, the Sox are 85-58 and winners of their last 6. The Rangers are 80-64 and despite a fairly cushy home schedule, Texas has dropped their last 3 straight games.
In the meantime, the Red Sox have been taking care of business sweeping a 3-game home series with a Tampa Bay Rays team that is now in total freefall (loser of 12 of their last 13 and just one game above .500). The Sox then took the opening game of a set against the Western division leading Los Angeles Angels. Daisuke Matsuzaka returned to the active roster and was brilliant in holding the Angels to just three hits over 6+ innings of shutout ball. His last quality start? Try October of last year in game 1 of the ALCS against the Tampa Bay Rays. Before being moved to the disabled list on June 19, Dice-K had an 8.23 ERA and looked awful.
If Dice-K is truly back, it will be a big shot in the arm for the Sox since it appears Tim Wakefield’s back may need surgery.
Paul Byrd gets the nod in game 2 of the 3-game home series against the Angels. (AP photo.)
Tomorrow night, Paul Byrd pitches for the Sox against the Angels Joe Saunders. Saunders is 13-7 with a 4.81 ERA. The Sox will be without the services of at least Victor Martinez who is in Cleveland attending to urgent family business. Kevin Youklis missed tonight’s game with back spasms and may not be available for Wednesday’s game as well. Byrd has looked okay in 2 of his 3 starts for the Sox but, at the risk of being a doubting Thomas I am, well, a doubting Thomas. I think hard hitting teams like the Angels and Yankees are going to be very tough on Byrd.
Thursday’s series closer has Josh Beckett facing off against Ervan Santana. Beckett looked much better in last Saturday’s rain-shortened game than he has of late — but then again, that was against a Tampa Bay team that managed just 2 runs in the 3 game set. Beckett is 15-6 with a 3.82 ERA while Santana is 7-8 with a 5.52 ERA.
The Sox travel to Baltimore for a 3-game set over the weekend.
Sox Musings
At 85-58, the Red Sox have now had winning records for 42 of the last 43 seasons beginning with 1967.
There are 19 games remaining in the season. If the Sox were to catch fire and go 15-4 over that stretch, they’d win 100 games and still would not likely catch the Yankees.
New York is 93-53.With 16 games left, they project to win 103 games this year. The Sox project to win 95-96 games.
Assuming the Sox get the wild card and survive the divisional series, the Yankees will be a formidable team to beat to get back to the World Series.
