The battle for first place begins tonight with the young Jamaican sinkerballer Justin Masterson on the bump for the Boston Red Sox. Masterson has had good success in his two previous starts. He has a 1-0 record with 1.46 ERA in 12.1 innings.
The Red Sox made a bunch of roster moves today, four in all as they called up Chris Carter from Pawtucket to replace David Ortiz on the roster. They also sent Jeff Bailey back to Pawtucket to make room for Masterson. He will be up for at least one more start before Daisuke Matsuzaka returns from the disabled list.
Joe McDonald of the Providence Journal has a great story about a taxi ride he took to the airport in Baltimore this morning.
Manny Ramirez is the 20th highest-earning athlete according to Sports Illustrated’s Fortunate 50 list.
David Ortiz talked about his wrist injury in the clubhouse this afternoon. Here is what he said courtesy of Amalie Benjamin from the Boston Globe.
“I think the doctors say 70 to 80 percent of the people that had this, normally when they get the cast, it normally goes back [to where it was],” Ortiz said. “If the pain goes away and I still have the clicking, I probably can play through it and maybe fix it after the season. Otherwise, if I have the pain, I [might need surgery].”
“They’re going to get it off in two weeks just to see how I feel,” Ortiz said. “If I have no pain, then they’re going to start getting me swinging and see how I feel. Cause the problem right now is the pain. Every time I move my hands I feel pain.
“Everybody has like a little bracelet I guess that holds on to all the tendons. So when you stretch it, the tendons normally come out of position. That’s what happened to me right here. Because it’s kind of loose, every time I move my hand, the tendon just pops. So with this [cast] it won’t allow me to move my hands around, so it will probably give the tendon the opportunity to go back where it’s supposed to be.”
Anthony from the Oriole Post has some more great pics from last night’s game.
Lineups and batter/pitcher matchups are after the jump.
Here are tonight’s starting lineups:
35-22
1. Akinori Iwamura 2b
2. Dioner Navarro c
3. B.J. Upton cf
4. Carlos Pena 1b
5. Evan Longoria 3b
6. Cliff Floyd dh
7. Eric Hinske lf
8. Gabe Gross rf
9. Jason Bartlett ss
- Matt Garza sp
35-25
1. Jacoby Ellsbury lf
2. Dustin Pedroia 2b
3. Kevin Youkilis 1b
4. Manny Ramirez dh
5. Mike Lowell 3b
6. J.D. Drew rf
7. Jason Varitek c
8. Coco Crisp cf
9. Julio Lugo ss
- Justin Masterson p
Here are tonight’s batter/pitcher matchups. No one on the Rays has faced Masterson.
i turned on espn this morning and those boneheads were talking about the sox should sign barry bonds…i go to the boston globe sports page and there talking about the same thing…pls make it stop…its kind of hard for me to get up some rivalry feelings for the rays…w/ ortiz out it should be interesting to see how the sox go without him…lets just keep our fingers crossed its only a month. i ‘m not worried yet even if the sox don’t win this series w/ the rays…i think the sox have enough depth to get by…gulp…
I heard and read all that crap too. I payed no mind to it because there’s no way boy wonder would ever make that mistake of signing Bonds.
I really think the Sox will be fine without Ortiz. He thinks he’ll be out about 3 weeks but I’d venture to say a month.
yeah i feel pretty calm about it and i think the sox have enough depth to cover for ortiz if it takes a little longer…i don’t watch espn to often if i do its with the sound off. i expect that from espn but on the globe page …urgh anyways sox are up and thats all that counts
that’s the media’s job. to speculate about things like that. once i heard it I laughed it off and had a feeling something would be in a boston paper this morning.
you’ve got moss, bailey and carter all raking in Pawtucket. Moss didn’t get the call up only so he can play everyday at first base. bailey’s back there and will probably start right where he left off there. and carter will be fine up here.