The Red Sox have undoubtedlyhit a stretch here that can only hurt the team.  In fact, I am not sure I have ever seen anything like this, where 3 KEY contributors go down with injuries in 3 consecutive days.  First Dustin Pedroia fouls a ball off his foot and breaks it.  Then Clay Buchholz leaves a game after running the bases and slightly tears his lower hamstring.  On Sunday, Victor Martinez continues the trend and takes a foul ball off his thumb and breaks the tip of it on his catching hand.  To anyone watching or reporting, you can say this is bad luck and understandable if the teams tanks it for the next 6 weeks. 

However, if you’re playing and part of this team, it can only be a hurdle that you must run through along the way.

If the team hangs their heads, and play 10 games under .500 in the next month, you can just call it a season and give up.  They can’t do this.  They must power through the toughest part of the season and realize they can get through it.  There is still David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, and JD Drew in the lineup.  Last I checked, Adrian Beltre was 4th in batting with twice as many home runs as he hit last year….and we’re not even half way through this season.  I believe John Lester is still at the top of the rotation along with John Lackey, and Dice-k.  Isn’t Bard and Papelbon still at the back end of the staff?

90% of teams out there, would kill for these assets, and the Sox only have to go on with this cast for a few weeks.  In turn, Buchholz and Martinez will be back first week in July.  At the end of the month, we hope to have Beckett and Pedroia back.  And hopefully, and I do mean hopefully, at some point we might even see Jacoby Ellsbury steal a base or two. 

Those are some key acquisitions!

So if the team sees the light at the end, let them know they only need to stay in the race because come the July 31st trading deadline, there is no team….and I mean NO team will have better reinforcements coming in to help a team than the Red Sox.  This is something you can count on!

Remember if you’re going to the game tonight, or just plan on at least seeing the first pitch, the start time has been pushed up an hour, to accomodate Game 7 of the NBA finals tonight between the Celtics and Lakers.  Pre-game will now be at 5 o’clock, with the first pitch being thrown just past 6 o’clock.

Sox have either won or tied their last 10 series, dating back to May 19th.  The team is 20-9 in that span.

The Diamondbacks come into Fenway Park tonight, having lost a franchise record 12 straight road games. 

John Lackey has won 3 out of his last 4 starts, and is 5-1 at Fenway this year.

Victor Martinez (7 for 13) and Adrian Beltre (15 for 35) have absolutely owned tonight’s starter, Dan Haren.  They are a combined 22 for 48 (.458 avg.) with 3 Home Runs.

Lackey has never faced the Diamondbacks in his career.

Coming into this season, the Red Sox talked so much about defense.  Defensive play, defensive metric, defensive range and when everyone wanted the team to go after the big boppers like Jason Bay and Matt Holiday, the team got…..well, defensive.  This wasn’t a “bridge year” or a “rebuilding” year for the Sox, but rather they felt like they got more value from the guys who were good hitters, but great defensively. 

Things didn’t start out so well for the Sox and to make things worse, in turn, the team was quickly falling behind the Rays and Yankees and it seemed like the season was dwindling away.

Bring us to present time where the Sox played their way back into the race, now only 4 games back of both the Yankees and Rays and going 15-7  in their last 22 games.  Look closer and in the Sox first 42 games the team had 27 errors.  That is on pace for 104 errors for the year.  In comparison the team had 82 errors last season and ranked 12th out of the 14 American League teams.  This year looked to be far worse, leading the league in mishaps.   

Now look at their win streak, and in the 23 games the team has played 8 games above .500, they only have 8 errors, bringing their total to 35 errors in 65 games, ranking them now 4th in the American League, a far better pace than before.  If they were to play at this pace from the beginning, they would wind up with 56 errors.  Almost HALF of their torrid streak before they started winning.  Coincidence, I don’t think so. 

So as this team begins to pitch better, catch better, and play much better offensively than anyone could’ve had hoped for, they will be a force down the strecth.  Especially considering they might have the best mid season acquisitions of any other team considering Ellsbury and Beckett will be joining the squad. 

By the way, those guys can pitch and catch with the best of ‘em.  Even better!

Coming into the season, a lot was talked about the Red Sox new identity.  Pitching and defense will help win a championship and this was not a “bridge year”.  Fans, media, and maybe even behind closed doors some of the players had to question this theory, especially playing in a division with the likes of Alex Rodriguez, Mark Texiera, Evan Longoria, and Vernon Wells.  When the Sox allowed Jason Bay to walk and the brass took that money to invest in mid level free agents Mike Cameron, Adrian Beltre, and Marco Scutaro….the majority of the baseball world questioned these ideas.  The Sox had trouble hitting last year, and this year look to be far worse!

Fast forward to today.  59 games into the season or roughly 36% of the way through the schedule, the team’s offense should be the least of your worries.  Although the pitching has been fantastic of late, (Wakefield will be going for the 5th quality start in a row tonight), it’s been the offense that has carried the team.  Just look at these eye popping numbers.

Going into tonight’s game against the Indians, the Red Sox compared to the entire league, are currently 1st in Runs (318), hits (565), doubles (141), total bases (957), RBI’s (308), and OPS (.814).  They are second in Home Runs (79), OBP (.362), and Slugging (.463) and finally 4th in Batting average (.274). 

Now I knew they were going above and beyond expectations with some of their offensive numbers, but I perfected the double take when looking some of this up.  Those are all of the most important offensive statistics and the Red Sox don’t fall out of the top 4 in all of baseball. 

I believe we have a big enough sample size to start thinking that this team can out-score everyone and anyone.  So when it all comes together, and I am confidant it has (winning 15 or their last 20 games), they will be a very tough team to beat.  Because remember, the pitching and defense are there.  And now that we know the offense is as good if not better, it’s not a question of being able to catch Tampa Bay or New York, but expecting it.

In 1996, Victor Martinez was signed as an amateur free agent by the Cleveland Indians.  On July 31st, 2009, he was dealt to the Boston Red Sox for prospects including Justin Masterson.  It was a tough time for him, thinking he would don an Indians uniform his whole career, and it’s something that can be difficult to deal with your first time through.

“It’s tough. This is my house. This is my home”,  he said after the trade.

But less than a year later, he finds himself in a contract year and hoping he can stay in Boston for many years to come.  Tonight, nevertheless, marks the first time returning to Cleveland since the trade.  He comes in red hot, hitting .600 in his last 5 games including a home run and 4 doubles.  The one time the Sox and Indians met last year with Martinez hitting third for the home team, was at Fenway and coincidentally he hit well during that series, going 5-12 (.417) with a double and a HR.

The 2 teams are in completely different situation with Cleveland having the second worst record in baseball, and the Sox fighting for a playoff spot, but Martinez will feel at home during this 4 game series. 

Tonight, he will be staring at Fausto Carmona 60 feet, 6 inches away.  But this time he wont be calling for the fastball, but instead trying to hit it really, really far.

Mike Cameron will see his first action since last Sunday and for only the sixth time since coming off the DL on May 25th.  The veteran outfielder is 8-23 in that time.

With the Yankees losing last night to Toronto, The Red Sox are only a game and a half behind the Bombers for the wild card and 3.5 back from the division.

With a tough lefty in rookie Brian Matusz on the mound today, Terry Francona is going with a very righty heavy lineup today, with David Ortiz being the lone lefty.

Today’s Lineup:

Marco Scutaro  SS

Dustin Pedroia 2B

David Ortiz  DH

Kevin Youkilis  1B

Victor Martinez  C

Adrian Beltre  3B

Bill Hall  LF

Mike Cameron  CF

Darnell McDonald  RF

Pitching:  John Lackey, (6-3, 4.95 ERA)

Tonight’s lineup is in:

Red Sox:

Marco Scutaro SS

Dustin Pedroia 2B

David Ortiz DH

Kevin Youkilis 1B

Victor Martinez C

J.D. Drew RF

Adrian Beltre 3B

Jeremy Hermida LF

Bill Hall CF

PItching:  RHP Clay Buchholz (7-3), 2.72 ERA

Orioles: 

Corey Patterson LF

Miguel Tejada 3B

Nick Markakis RF

Ty Wiggington 1B

Luke Scott DH

Matt Wieters C

Adam Jones CF

Scott Moore 2B

Cesar Izturis SS

Pitching: RHP Chris Tillman (0-0), 3.18 ERA

Over the past 2 years, Jon Lester has taken the reigns from Josh Beckett as the team’s number one pitcher, and rightly so.  Lester has been more consistant, dominant, and out right better than not only all pitchers on the Sox, but most pitchers in the majors.  That being said, it’s time to start factoring Clay Buchholz as a guy that we saw in Lester just a couple of years ago.  Buchholz goes up against the same team that he no-hit in just his second big league start of his career.  But how far the youngster has come is beyond measure. 

Riddled the first couple of years, Buchholz seemed on the path of local favorite Lou Merloni, where he could make the drive up from Pawtcuket seemingly with his eyes closed.  Then going into the season last year, he seemed destined to finally be a mainstay with the varsity club.  That was before the aquisitions of john Smoltz and Brad Penny.  Which meant another season with triple A Pawsox.  Buchholz absolutely  dominated the minors with a sub 2 ERA mowing down hitters with ease.  Finally he saw his way into the rotation in the second half of the ’09 season and pitched well enough that he started game 3 of the playoffs, and although he lost, might’ve been the best starting pitcher for Boston in those three games.

Skip to this year, where once again questions were raised whether or not to trade the youngster, keep him in the rotation, put him in the bullpen, or even….yup….send him back down.  Well the team felt enough was enough and it was time to start playing yourself out of the prospect label, and into the star they hoped for.  And he hasn’t disappointed. 

If Clay Buchholz wins tonight, he will be tied with David Price for the league lead in wins (8).  Going into tonight’s game his ERA is 5th in the league (2.73) and in May he was 5-1 and he hasn’t given up more than 2 runs in his last 4 outings.  Even more so, if you take out his two stinkers (4 runs vs. LAA/5 runs vs. NYY) he has not allowed more than 3 runs in any of his other starts.  He has 6 quality starts in only 10 appearances and has quickly formed a formidable punch atop the rotation along with Lester.

So Jon Lester has certainly establishes himself as one of the best and surely deserves to be the teams’ “Ace”, but Clay Buchholz has made great strides since his no-no against the Orioles in September of 2007.  So much that when he pitches against the likes of Sabathia, Greinke, Verlander, or Shields, you’re not only expecting a good game.  You’re expecting a win.

The Red Sox have called up left handed veteran Alan Embree from Pawtucket. The announcement was made last night after the Sox won 2-1. To make room on their 40 man roster and have designated infielder Kevin Fransden for assignment. They also optioned Fabio Castro back to Pawtucket, after just being called up for last night’s game . This move was to make room on the 25 man roster for Embree.

Frandsen was hitting .258 with two homers and four RBI for Pawtucket.

Embree pitched in eight games for Pawtucket, allowing three runs on two hits, striking out six and walking five over 7 1/3 innings. He had faced 14 left-handed hitters, not surrendering a hit and just one walk.

Embree had the option of opting out of his contract with the Red Sox if he wasn’t placed on the 25-man roster by Friday. Castro was with the Red Sox for just one day, having joined the team as insurance in the bullpen, with Scott Atchison having been sent to Pawtucket.

Brad Baker is the Founder and Webmaster of nhredsoxnation.com and runs the blog From the Dugout – The Official Blog of NHRedSoxNation.com

The Red Sox recalled left handed reliever, Fabio Castro from Pawtucket and optioned right handed reliever, Scott Atchison to Pawtucket after last night’s game in Toronto. Castro will be availible for tonight’s game in Toronto and will be wearing number 55.

Castro has made 3 starts down in Pawtucket so far this year and has an 0-1 record with a 8.10 earned run average with 13 strike outs and 8 free passes. This is the first season for Castro in the Red Sox organization after signing as a free agent this past December. He spent his 2009 season split between Toronto’s Double A New Hampshire Fisher Cats and their Triple A Las Vegas affiliate. He had a combining 9-6 record with a 4.01 ERA in 29 starts. He has  had Major League experience with the Rangers and Phillies.

Scott Atchison, appeared in seven games for the Sox this season, going 0-1 with a 6.10 earned run average with nine strikeouts and four walks. Atchison is in his first Major League since 2007. He pitched for the Hanshin Tigers of the Japan Central League for the 2008 and 2009 seasons where he had a 12-9 record and a 2.77 ERA in 117 relief appearances. He has a career MLB record of 2-4 with a 4.37 ERA in 60 career appearaces over his career that were with  Seattle, San Francisco and Boston.