No one is happier than the Red Sox that the month of April is over. Probably the happiest to bid the old month adieu is Carl Crawford, who has started the month of May with a 3-game hitting streak in which he has gotten 2 hits in each game. He's starting to look like his old self (that is, the version of him we saw when he was a Tampa Bay Ray) and the walk-off hit on Sunday afternoon, though the sample size since the is microscopic, looks to be the start of good things for him. For Big Papi and Adrian Gonzalez, May reunited them with their home run stroke. Papi has hit 2 and Gonzo 1 in the first 3 days of the month. Even the scuffling Scoots found some power when he went yard tonight for the 3rd dinger of the 8th inning.
Lester fanned 11 Angels en route to his 4th win of the season, allowing 1 run over 7 innings. His ERA on the season is now 2.33 and he's finished the best April of his career. Beckett had a nice first month of the season too, rediscovering the form that made him dominant in 2007 and for stretches in 2009. Dice-K and Lackey improved considerably in the latter part of the month. As for Buchholz, he's got to be hoping last night's start is the beginning of better things for him too. It was his first quality start of the season, giving up 2 runs over 6 2/3 innings.
The bullpen has been up and down. Papelbon looks like the dominant closer of '07 and '08, tonight's non-save outing where he gave up 2 runs notwithstanding. Bard has been more good than bad, but the bad outings, like the one in Baltimore where he gave up the go-ahead run after Youk had tied the game in the top of the inning with a 3-run bomb, show that his command can go AWOL at inopportune times. Jenks started out great, but has run into trouble recently. Wheeler so far doesn't look like the guy the Sox saw in Tampa Bay and has been relegated to mop-up work. Oki has had some good outings and some bad ones, but he's better than Dennys Reyes. Albers has been very good, probably the best guy in the bullpen not named Papelbon. Finally Wake has done a pretty good job out of the 'pen and he provided the Sox with an emergency start last Sunday, going 5 1/3 and giving up one run against Seattle.
The offense is looking mighty fine against the Angels, but against the rest of the league, it's another story. Let's hope they start piling up the runs against other teams in May because after Thursday, that's all they're going to see of the Halos for the rest of the regular season. Should the Sox start requiring all visiting teams to don Angels uniforms?
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