456. We all know baseball is a numbers game and for the Boston Red Sox, the number 456 is just another number now in their history. The sellout streak that started on May 15, 2003 has brought over 16 million fans to Fenway Park, many of them repeat visitors, many new faces. During that time, we’ve seen two Red Sox World Championships and countless numbers of great games, most notably the no-hitters by Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester.
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Sellout #456 saw Lester throw another gem to help the Red Sox get to within .5 games of the first place Tampa Bay Rays. Something we’ve been seeing as of late from Lester is complete control on the mound and he showed that again last night. I hate to say this and compare him to New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte when he was younger but that’s who Lester reminds me of right now especially with the action that he has on his cutter and his mound presence.
We truly have a star pitcher, an ace, in our midst and as Steve said in a comment last night, he is probably the best homegrown starting pitcher that we have. You could argue that Jonathan Papelbon is the best homegrown pitcher but he’s in the bullpen now. And with the likes of Justin Masterson, Michael Bowden and a mentally straight Clay Buchholz, the future is bright for the Red Sox. And that’s not taking into account players like Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jed Lowrie.
Given the way that Lester pitched last night and the way Rays starter Edwin Jackson recovered from the bad first inning, the game could have gone a lot longer than it did. Luckily for the Red Sox, Lester was just downright nasty and Papelbon came in firing fastballs to make those 3 first inning runs stand up to give the Red Sox a chance to take over first place for the first time since before the All-Star break.
Before we get into the links, let’s take a look at yet another fine musical montage from the gurus of musical montages at NESN.
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Adam Kilgore wants to know what’s gotten into Coco Crisp.
The Rays had a players-only meeting called by Cliff Floyd before yesterday’s game.
Jonathan Papelbon was fired up last night.
The Rays have lost their fighting spirit they once had.
The Red Sox have shut down Michael Bowden and Clay Buchholz for the rest of the season.
The Rays now have lost 13-of-15 their last 15 games and 7 straight at Fenway Park.
Michael Berger looks at Papelbon’s workload while James Stewart shares his top 5 Fenway moments.
And if you missed the videos from last night, you check those out here.
For more slices of Boston Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hartford Courant and Providence Journal websites.
And if you must see what the enemy papers are saying you can check out the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times websites.
