Clay Buchholz scythed his way through the JV Yankee lineup, needing only 96 pitches in 7 innings of work. The one blemish on his outing was a Travis Hafner solo homerun. Buchholz typically struggles against the Yankees and in April. It's April, and these players were technically the Yankees, so good for him.
It was a game the Red Sox should have won. Which is good news for two reasons:
#1. The Red Sox are back to being a team that is supposed to win games.
#3. The Red Sox are winning games they should win. They didn't do that often enough last year, or in 2011.
Are they the best team in baseball or their division? Impossible to tell after 2 games against a hodgepodge Yankee roster. Are they taking care of the business that should be taken care of? So far, yes. That's an improvement. It's refreshing.
Not so refreshing was the fact that Alfredo Aceves allowed a 3 run bomb by Vernon Wells that made the late innings interesting. This worries me because Aceves wasn't reliable at all last year.
In the 9th, Joel Hanrahan was on the opposite end of the spectrum. He looked very sharp, hitting 96 and 97 on the radar gun, with movement.
Jackie Bradley Jr. continued his ROY/MVP/HOF campaign with an RBI single in the 3rd. His first Major League hit.
Jose Iglesias went 2 for 4, and is hitting the softest .556 in history.
The Red Sox knocked in 5 runs with 2-outs. That's my favorite stat of the night. That's the difference between winning 7-4 and losing 4-2 right there, just a few 2-out at-bats.
Ryan Dempster faces Andy Pettitte tonight. With that matchup and Jaromir Jagr coming to the Bruins, I feel like it's 1999 again. I'm going to check my smartphone for the Y2K bug.
Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
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