Sox Crawl Back Only To Be Kicked Back Down

The good news is that The War is back to being close after Sunday's 9-2 blowout. The Sox were only a few feet from taking a lead but Damon's fly-out to Sheffield didn't have enough energy to get over the right fielder's steroid filled head. Another piece of good news is that we own Mariano Rivera. In his last 10 regular seaosn outings, he has blown 4 saves to us. He blew two in the ALCS last year. I think Rivera's dominance was mostly because of the myth surrounding him. Hitters thought the game was over when he came in. As any sports psychologist will tell you, sports are replete will self-fulfilling prophecies. The Sox seem to have confidence against him though. They have ever since Shea Hillenbrand hit a HR off him over the Monster a few years ago (one of the ebst games I've ever been to). The way Varitek sat on a cut-fastball, turned on it, and drove it was a beautiful thing to see. To quote my friend Will, Rivera has become the Yankees Byung-Hyung Kim.

Anyway, alot of dissapointing performances from the Red Sox took away from some fine outings. First and foremost, Clement did not pitch around trouble very well. The fact that he couldn't go 5 sets up tomorrow's game poorly. Foulke came on strong against the bottom of the order but he did not look great against Jeter. It was a great at-bat but Jeter won it. Nixon had a terrible day in the #2 hole going 0 for 4 with 2 Ks and 5 LOB. Last year the Sox got alot of production out of the 2 spot in the order from Bellhorn and later Cabrera. So far, the Sox #2 hitters are 0 for 8. Manny continued to struggle going 0 for 4 with a pair of strikeouts. Renteria also failed to get a hit and made his first error of the season.

The Man of the Game is once again Hideki Matsui. This guy is locked in and definately playing in mid-season form. He went 3 for 4 with a pair of RBI, a Homer, and a Run scored.

The Bitch-Goat shall be divided thusly:
Clement: 0.2 - 4.1 IP, 3 ER
Ramirez: 0.1 - 0 for 4
Nixon: 0.2 - 0 for 4 with 5 LOB
Renteria: 0.2 - 0 for 4 with an Error
Foulke: 0.3 - IP, ER

The Sox finish their first of seemingly 50 series with New York tomorrow afternoon as Tim Wakefield faces Mike "$16 Million for a #3 starter" Mussina.