Trading Blow(out)s

Sox: 11 Nats: 3
Sox: 6 Nats: 4
Sox: 3 Nats: 9

This blog's a little late since the Sox have already played a game in their series against the Braves, but better late than never, right? Anyway, so the Sox did what their archrival Yanks couldn't: They won a series against the Nats. Not like the Nats are this huge baseball juggernaut--they're very much the opposite--but a little schadenfreude at the Yanks' expense is part of being a Red Sox fan;-)

The series started with the Sox playing a close game against the team from our nation's capital for seven innings and then going to town on the Nats' bullpen in the eighth to the tune of six runs. They added another one in the ninth for good measure. J-Bay and Jake had 4 hits and 3 RBI apiece, Bay with this 19th homer of the year and Jake with not one, but TWO triples. Penny went 5.2, giving up 3 runs on 6 hits, walking 3 and fanning 6. Not his best outing, but enough to keep the Sox in the game. The Sox turned 3 twin-killings, featuring some killer defense by Nick Green, to thwart the Nats' offense.

Game 2 was a much tighter game. Lester took the hill and got the W, throwing 6 innings, with 3 runs on 6 hits, walking 2 and whiffing 6. Papi belted another long ball, a 3-run blast in the fourth, for his seventh of the season and sixth in the month of June. Tek also went yard for a 2-run shot in the sixth. With the exception of the run allowed by Masterson in the seventh, the Sox 'pen finished the game off, with Paps having a refreshing 1-2-3 in the ninth.

The series finale marked John Smoltz's much-anticipated Red Sox debut. Smoltz, full of emotions and enough adrenaline to equal a six-pack of Red Bull, couldn't contain himself in the first inning, giving up four runs on four hits, a walk, and a hit batter (Nick Johnson, who had to leave the game with a baseball-sized welt on his shin). He bounced back with a 1-2-3 second inning, but ran into a little more trouble in the third, when Josh Willingham, who was a thorn in Smoltz's side all evening, doubled and Sox castoff Josh Bard singled him home. However, he coasted through the fourth and fifth innings, finishing strong by retiring the last six batters he faced. Jordan Zimmermann (not to be confused with Nats third baseman Ryan "one n" Zimmerman) dominated the Sox, holding them to one run. The Sox pen had about as shaky a night as Smoltz's first inning, with Bard giving up two runs in an inning where he made an error and a wild pitch and Saito giving up a two-run bomb to another Sox castoff, Willie Harris. Baldelli managed to go deep off the Nats pen, but it was too little, too late for the Sox on a night where the pitching wasn't sharp and the hitting was all but absent.

I'm not worried about John Smoltz. It was his first major league start in over a year and on a new team for the first time in twenty years. His first inning was brutal, but he recovered nicely and had three perfect innings and a strong finish. He had to get that first start out of his system. That's not to say he'll go out and dominate the next start, but it's not to say he won't either. The jury's still out and it will be for a few starts.

Mike Lowell, on the other hand, I am a little worried about. He's showing signs of his surgically repaired hip barking really loudly. Due to injuries and slumps in the earlier months of the season, he was forced into playing more games than he should have because they needed his bat in the lineup. Now, he's paying the price. Mark DeRosa's name is being floated around in trade rumors and he's a possibility at third, should Lowell's hip get worse and he need extended downtime, but Lowrie is also returning soon and he can play third, with Nick Green remaining at short. Of course, it remains to be seen how Lowrie's wrist holds up and whether or not that will seriously impact his bat. Youk can also play third with Kotsay or even Papi at first.

LET'S GO RED SOX!!!!