Streaking?

Don't look now but the Red Sox just won two games in a row. That constitutes a win streak. A small one, but still a streak. It did my heart good--in more ways than one--to see the pitching staff limit the Jays to just one run in back-to-back games. Beckett followed up his awesome performance against the Yanks with another one against the Jays and Lester turned in his third quality start of the season, finally getting the run support he deserved.

Another key to these two wins was clutch hitting, most notably from Jed Lowrie (1 HR, 3 RBI over the two games), Ells (a 3-run tater in today's game) and Salty (3 RBI today). Lowrie, despite his defensive gaffe on a would-be double-play ball this afternoon, has been making his case for staying in the lineup, batting over .500, albeit in a very small sample size. He's the hot bat the Red Sox have to ride until they get the rest of the guys going.

Poor Carl Crawford. Hitting leadoff in Boston is just not agreeing with him, at least not yet. It looks like he just doesn't know what to do to get his bat going. Perhaps a visit with the sports shrink is in order. He's got the talent, but maybe the pressure of the contract and playing in Boston, where baseball reigns supreme, is in his head. He was a Tampa Bay Ray for so long that playing for another team has to take some getting used to. I think he'll get it together and start hitting and getting on base like he usually does (remember Pedey in April 2007?) but I think it will take moving him out of leadoff for that to happen. Ells is showing signs of coming out of his slump and if he doesn't fall too much in love with his home run stroke, he can be moved back up to leadoff soon.

As for Adrian "Kaching!" Gonzalez (the big payday came on Friday: 7 years and $154 mil), he's been getting his hits, but the power has yet to show up. He has one dinger that came on the road in Cleveland, but hasn't gone yard yet at Fenway. He has a triple and 3 doubles, including one to the opposite field today and the rest have been singles. Of course, it took Beltre a little while to get his home run stroke going last season and when he did, he really took off.

The next few games will be a real test for the Sox, with Dice-K pitching tomorrow (who said the marathon is just for runners?) and a West Coast trip starting Tuesday. Lackey and Buchholz, as well as Dice-K, need to step up and start putting up quality starts. It's unfair to expect Beckett and Lester to carry the entire rotation. In order for the Red Sox to keep climbing out of that hole, they need improvement from the underperforming 60% of the starting rotation. Those two wins were great to see and they were two steps in the right direction, but the Sox aren't out of the woods yet. A strong showing on the West Coast is a necessity.