Watch Your Back

Apparently, David Ortiz’s torn meniscus isn’t causing him too much trouble these days as he’s sporting a .319 average and beat up on the Blue Jays on Thursday night, as Roy Halladay continues to struggle.

However, its sort of tough to believe that he’s anywhere close to 100%. He has seemingly been suffering from a torn meniscus since mid-2006, so the pain appears to be bearable, but its hard not to worry, especially for Red Sox faithful.

With Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett both injured or on their way back from injuries and Kevin Youkilis, Manny Ramirez and now Ortiz all fighting nagging injuries, the Red Sox lead may start to shrink if either the Yankees or the Blue Jays can put any type of run together.

As an ardent baseball fan for many years now, a late-season Yankee surge is not hard to imagine with pockets as deep as Steinbrenner’s and players as talented as Jeter and A-Rod. Don’t write the boys from the Bronx off quite yet.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

After 3 months across the pond, Daisuke Matsuzaka is finally starting to develop into the pitcher the Red Sox thought they were getting when they signed him to the exorbitant contract that brought him to Beantown. And I, am finally starting to come around and believe that he is the pitcher that the Red Sox said he was.

On Tuesday night Dice-K pushed his win total to 10 on the year, and has quietly lowered his ERA into the mid 3.00’s. He dismantled the Tampa Bay Devil Rays allowing no runs over 8 innings while striking out 9. The loss was the 9th in a row for the young and troubled Devil Rays squad.

After being marked a disappointment early on, he has really turned it around since June 1. After seeing his ERA peak in early May at 5.45, Matsuzaka has been nothing short of a godsend for the injury-riddled Red Sox pitching staff. Matsuzaka has only allowed 6 runs in his past 6 starts, posting an ERA of 1.29 and being virtually un-hittable, allowing only an average of about 4 hits per game. That’s the pitcher Theo Epstein thought he was getting, and those numbers are worth all of the pre-season hype.

Debuting

The Red Sox second most promising young player made his Major League debut on Saturday. Jacoby Ellsbury, a draft pick from 2005, came up and played center field, batting ninth and pulling in a single. Sort of an inauspicious beginning for someone so highly regarded but it will come.

Sadly, for Ellsbury, the potential All-Star game starter for the AL, Mr. Josh Beckett, couldn't hold the 4 run lead he was given, promptly coughing it up, allowing the Rangers and the red-hot Kenny Lofton to continue their winning ways.

Pretty low key way to start but this kid could be the real deal. Its pretty standard to compare him to Johnny Damon but that’s not fair. This kid’s got a better arm than Damon.

Keep your eyes peeled for Clay Buchholz in the near future if one of the Sox throwers go down. The guy has been tearing things up in double-A and should be up by the end of the year for sure.

All-Star Preview?

Watched the Padres play the Red Sox this afternoon. This game had been hyped all week long and while it wasn't quite the pitching duel I had expected, it was worth the watch. Jake Peavy took on Josh Beckett, and Beckett came out on top. Beckett was on it all game long going eight strong, leaving it for Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth. Maybe a point of interest here, but David Ortiz just couldn't hit this series and struck out 3 times today and went 1 of 11 overall.

Peavy just couldn’t find it, and due to some rough patches early, he had to leave after five with over 100 pitches thrown. His NL leading ERA jumps a little bit, but he’ll be alright. Royce Ring threw really well in relief, as did Trevor Hoffman.

There is definite talk of these two pitchers starting the All-Star game in a couple of weeks, but it's hard to believe that Beckett would get the nod over Dan Haren of the Athletics who has been filthy all year and leads the MLB in ERA. Peavy should have his locked up for mid-July but Brad Penny may pitch his way into a repeat appearance as the starter at the mid-summer classic.

And on one final note, what’s Julio Lugo doing still starting for the Red Sox as July approaches? Seriously now, with an average under .200 and dropping, can’t Theo Epstein add someone to fill the glaring hole?