Destination Red Sox Nation is our look at how the minor league teams of the Boston Red Sox fare each night. Game story links and links to team stats and league standings are after the jump.
The Red Sox have 4 of their minor league teams in the playoffs. The Pawtucket Red Sox, Portland Sea Dogs, Lancaster JetHawks and Lowell Spinners have all clinched playoff berths.
With my hosting contract set to expire and my unhappiness with them, I have decided to switch hosts. Due to this, we will not be updating the site for a few days. With things starting to pick up on the coverage of the Boston Red Sox, UConn Huskies and New England Patriots and the site having some issues, this is the best time to do it in the middle of the week.
I have turned off the comments on all the posts so that when I do one final backup of the site, we haven’t lost any comments or posts at all.
I do apologize for the inconvenience to everyone who stops by and makes what we do worthwhile. Your readership is very important to us and I do hope you return when the site relaunches in a few days.
We are not making any changes to the site at all other than moving the blog to a new host. My understanding of things is that the domain transfer will take 24-48 hours and hopefully with the prep I plan to do today, the site will be back up on Thursday.
If I am able to provide updates to everyone I will. If you any have questions, you can always email me at http://tinyurl.com/57djcu.
Once again, I apologize for the downtime but it’s our best interests to move to a reliable host which I know I have found.
Destination Red Sox Nation is our look at how the minor league teams of the Boston Red Sox fare each night. Game story links and links to team stats and league standings are after the jump.
The Red Sox have 4 of their minor league teams in the playoffs. The Pawtucket Red Sox, Portland Sea Dogs, Lancaster JetHawks and Lowell Spinners have all clinched playoff berths.
Dustin Pedroia carried his hot hitting into the month of September as he had another multi-hit game to go along with 2 RBI to lead the Boston Red Sox past the Baltimore Orioles 7-4 in front of 37,565 at Fenway Park on another beautiful night for baseball in Beantown.
With the first place Tampa Bay Rays idle, the Red Sox pick up a ½ game in the AL East to sit 5 games out. The Minnesota Twins were idle tonight as well and the Chicago White Sox lost so the Red Sox are 3 games ahead of both teams in the wild card race.
Paul Byrd picked up his third win in 4 tries in a Red Sox uniform.
Paul Byrd had a decent night on the hill despite giving up another 3 long balls. He gave up 4 runs on 7 hits and a walk while fanning 4. Javier Lopez worked a perfect inning and Jonathan Papelbon made things interesting in the 9th by allowing 2 hits.
Pedroia went 2-for-4 in the game to improve his average to .327. Jed Lowrie went 1-for-2 with 3 walks and 2 RBI while Jason Varitek and Jeff Bailey both hit solo home runs.
Byrd started out the game by striking out Brian Roberts then gave up a solo blast to Adam Jones.
Garrett Olson’s string of bad outings against the Red Sox continued tonight.
He struck out Jacoby Ellsbury and then issued a walk to Pedroia and got David Oritz to foul out. Walks to Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay loaded the bases but Olson recovered to strikeout Jed Lowrie.
More troubles for Olson in the 2nd as Bailey and Varitek hit back-to-back home runs to start the inning to put the Red Sox up 2-1.
The Orioles got the run back though in the 3rd inning when Byrd served up another gopher ball, this time to Juan Castro to tie the game at 2.
After both pitchers had settled down and kept the game moving at a brisk pace, Castro led off the 6th with a single and went to second on a Roberts sacrifice bunt. Jones fouled out but Nick Markakis followed with an RBI single to give the O’s a 3-2 lead. Huff then hit a double to move Markakis to third and Byrd walked Ramon Hernandez to load up the bases. He got out of the jam by getting Luke Scott to fly out to right field.
Paul Byrd looks for his 3rd win in 4 starts in a Red Sox uniform.
The Boston Red Sox kick off the final month of their 2008 campaign and march towards the playoffs sitting 5.5 games out of 1st place in the AL East and hold a 2.5 game lead in the wild card standings ahead of the Minnesota Twins.
On the homestand, the Red Sox are 2-1 and welcome the Baltimore Orioles to town. This is their last matchup with the cellar dwellers of the AL East and the Red Sox hold a 9-6 advantage in the season series.
Paul Byrd makes the start for the Red Sox tonight and is 2-1 with a 4.19 ERA in 3 starts since he came over from the Cleveland Indians. He’s made 6 starts in his career against the Orioles and is 1-4 with a 4.15 ERA.
Garrett Olson returns from Triple-A Norfolk to make the start for the Orioles tonight. He’s made 5 starts in his career against the Red Sox and is 0-3 with a 7.36 ERA.
Things appear to be relatively quiet at the Fens right now so there’s no news to report. Either that or the local media coverage is taking a nap.
If you missed Steve’s August review of the Boston Red Sox be sure to check that out.
Michael Berger of WEEI wants to know where the afternoon baseball was today at Fenway Park.
I missed this in the morning but wanted to pass it along that Julio Lugo has some legal issues right now that involve him being scammed.
Lineups and batter/pitcher matchups after the jump:
The Red Sox were leaps and bounds better in August than they were in July as they went 18-9 for the month in which a good portion of their key players either missed several games or had full blown DL stints. After a .500 home record in July the team regained the Fenway advantage by going 8-3 at home. And actually started to play better on the road as they recorded a 10-6 road record for August. During the month they hosted Oakland (3-0), Texas (3-0), Toronto (0-2) and Chicago (2-1). While they paid visits to Kansas City (2-1) Chicago (2-2), Baltimore (2-1), Toronto (2-1) and New York (2-1).
Manager Terry Francona: Tito had a much better month as he was forced to work around several different illnesses, injuries and a few new players to get the team heading in the right direction for the stretch run. Grade: B+
The New England Patriots hosted free agent cornerback Deltha O’Neal earlier this morning and they have now announced they have signed him to a contract. To make room on the 53-man roster, the Patriots released tight end Stephen Spach.
O’Neal has played 8 years in the NFL, playing for the Denver Broncos from 2000-03 and the Cincinnati Bengals from 2004-07. He was released 2 days ago by the Bengals.
The Patriots also announced Jacob Bender and tight end Tyson DeVree have been signed to the practice squad.
UConn Huskies quarterback Tyler Lorenzen’s opening game was a fluke.
John Silver grades the Huskies performance in the opener.
Svetlana Abrosimova is happy to be in Connecticut again.
The Huskies soccer team tied Tulsa 1-1 yesterday.
David Gillett has a player profile of men’s basketball player Craig Austrie.
The Boston Red Sox entered their final game in August looking for a 3-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox and to at least stay pace with the Tampa Bay Rays. Neither of those things happened though as the White Sox got the better of the Red Sox and the Rays romped over the Baltimore Orioles, the local nine’s opponent for the next 3 days.
Despite an 18-9 record last month, the Red Sox now sit 5.5 games behind the Rays and are just 2.5 games ahead of the Minnesota Twins in the wild card standings. Every game from here on in is critical to the Red Sox playoff hopes.
Despite all the injuries and now the flu bug that hit the Red Sox this weekend, they still had productive 3 days that produced 2 wins against a contending team. They outscored the White Sox 18-6.
The game of baseball is a funny game. All it took yesterday was Jim Thome hitting a good pitch from Tim Wakefield to change the game. As both pitchers settled in, it was a matter of getting to the bullpens. The White Sox bullpen held off the Red Sox late to save the game.
For the Red Sox, it was a game of missed opportunities that saw them leave 5 runners on base in the first two innings and 11 total in the game. Is there anyone to blame? Not at all, they just ran into a pretty good pitcher in Gavin Floyd. Maybe Ozzie Guillen can steal Daisuke Matsuzaka’s name of Houdini.
Destination Red Sox Nation is our look at how the minor league teams of the Boston Red Sox fare each night. Game story links and links to team stats and league standings are after the jump.
The Red Sox have 4 of their minor league teams in the playoffs. The Pawtucket Red Sox, Portland Sea Dogs, Lancaster JetHawks and Lowell Spinners have all clinched playoff berths.