The Boston Red Sox ended the month of April with a loss they’d soon rather forget but still finish it up with a 14-8 record after a 2-6 start.Tropicana Field hasn’t been kind to the Red Sox as of late as they were 1-8 there in the regular season last year and got off to a bad start again this year.
For whatever reason, Matt Garza simply owns the Red Sox in a similar fashion to how the Yankees’ A.J. Burnett had for a while. As we saw last weekend, the Red Sox beat up Burnett but will have to wait to try again against Garza. It took an infield single by Jacoby Ellsbury to break up the perfect game in the 7th inning against Garza. And if he weren’t fast, he probably wouldn’t have beat it out.
It may be time to start worrying about Josh Beckett who was seemingly cruising through the first two innings last night. Then he gave up a couple of weak infield singles and then tried to be too careful against Carl Crawford (almost like a Dice-K careful). It seemed to me that mental part of the game got to Beckett last night and that’s what cause the downfall.
There doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with Beckett so who knows. But one thing’s for certain, if he doesn’t start to resemble 2007 Beckett, it could be a long season for the Red Sox.
One thing to take note of tonight. Although the game starts at 7:38 PM, the NESN pre-game show will start at 6:00 PM due to the Boston Bruins playing. The Red Sox have also been relegated to the NESN Plus channel tonight so if you turn on NESN and find the Bruins, the Red Sox aren’t rained out. They’re just on NESN Plus. After all, they are playing in a dome.
Garza, Rays silence Sox [Boston Globe]
Matt Garza, Rays rip up Red Sox [Boston Herald]
Rays 13, Red Sox 0: A lost night in Tampa Bay [Providence Journal]
Former doghouse resident now a bulldog [Boston Globe]
Jonathan Van Every pitches in [Boston Herald]
Rays 13, Red Sox 0: Van Every takes the hill [Providence Journal]
Beckett can’t locate trouble [Boston Globe]
Big Papi glad to see poor April end [Boston Herald]
Rays enter the weekend last in the standings and first in frustration [Providence Journal]
Van Every pitches in – as a reliever [Boston Globe]
Josh Beckett, Jon Lester put stress on Red Sox bullpen [Boston Herald]
Van Every pitching in everywhere [RedSox.com]
Garza, Garza, Garza [Hit and Run with Dan Roche]
For rotation, it’s been a rough start[Tony Massarotti Blog]
For more slices of Boston Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, 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.
