A great game for the Sox, as Doug Mirabelli, Mike Timlin, Tim Wakefield, John Olerud, Trot Nixon and Mark Bellhorn reminded the Red Sox faithful how nice it is to have some roster depth. Even Matt Mantei, after 6 consecutive balls and a visit from Dave Wallace to start his outing in the 8th inning, settled down and pitched wonderfully. Sitting behind homeplate, I can report that Mantei’s stuff is positively filthy, and that if he could ever find his control he truly could be a dominant force out of the Sox bullpen. Nick Cafardo’s game story is here.

The Red Sox were aided by Tribe manager, Eric Wedge, who was asleep at the wheel yesterday. The Indians had a number of important at bats in the late innings and yet not once did the Sox see either Ronnie Belliard or Grady Sizemore, two of Cleveland’s more potent offensive threats. Aaron Boone and Alex Cora, two of baseball’s worst hitters thus far in 2005, each came to the plate and failed miserably in critical situations in both the 6th and 9th innings.

The Red Sox are in a nice spot now, with a 2-game division lead and time to address potential future pitfalls. Only complacency can do them in. Presented without further comment…

Roberto Petagine (AAA): .335/.447/.671
Kevin Millar: .274/.353/.385
John Olerud: .405/.439/.622
Olerud (’02-’04): .278/.380/.422

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Curt Schilling made his first rehab start since being shelved. Details here.

Look for me in the front row behind home plate. I’ll have a blue shirt on and I have red hair.

I’ll be the guy waving wildly on my cell phone.

I keed, I keed. No cell phone behind the plate. Ever.

Keith Foulke allowed 5 runs in the 9th inning, blowing both the save and the game for the Sox. Things have been going well of late, so there is no need to rush into a knee-jerk type of decision. That said, the bullpen has been a concern for well over a month now. Wishcasting Keith Foulke and Alan Embree into their respective 2004 versions does not appear to be the solution. Nor is banking on a return to form from Matt Mantei or a return to, um, mediocrity, from John Halama. Fortunately, there seem to be potential solutions in both Pawtucket and Portland. It would be a shame to part with any real value before exploring in-house options.

Other thoughts from the game? Kevin Millar sucks, Travis Hafner doesn’t and it’d be nice if Wade Miller could make it through the 6th inning.

I will be in the front row of Section 20 for the matinee today. It’ll be Tim Wakefield against Scott Elarton. Or is it Seth Etherton? Maybe it’s Bill Pullman? Paxton?

Oh and Baltimore won in dramatic fashion, which is bad you know, because they are better than the Yankees.

Trade Foulke, Embree, Mantei and Halama for Cla Meredith, Abe Alvarez, Jeremi Gonzalez and Lenny Dinardo.

There is just no way in hell that such a move wouldn’t represent a significant upgrade.

In a game that most definitely must have confounded the living hell out of the CHB, the Red Sox were torched by the Cleveland Indians, 7-0.

Kevin Millwood, though a tad inefficient, was tremendous. He threw a driving, heavy fastball that was spot-on all night. Red Sox hitters were helpless against the big righty. Bronson Arroyo was not all that bad, just a few brain-dead mistakes here and there. He was also victimized by costly mishaps from Mark Bellhorn and Trot Nixon in the field.

These games will happen, though. Might as well run up against a great pitching performance, be asleep in the field, make careless pitching mistakes and seem lost at the plate all in the same game. The good news is that the Baltimore Orioles also lost their game to the Yanks, 6-4, and so the Sox remain 2.5 games ahead in the American League East.

For the second consecutive game started by David Wells, the Sox overcame a shaky outing by the big man and even shakier pitching by their relief corps and just straight outslugged the opposition. Squandering an 8-run lead would be cause for concern on most days but not this one. It took the Red Sox just 8 pitches in the top of the 8th inning to jump back ahead by 4 runs after blowing the big lead. They would win 12-8. Behind the bats of Mark Bellhorn, Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek the Red Sox tacked on their 7th straight win and their llth in their last 12 games. There was little doubt that this was a good team when they left Boston last Sunday night but questions remained about their ability to win on the road. No longer. The Red Sox have swept two good teams on the road and now there is no more need to employ a qualifier when judging this team. It’s a damn good one, period.

That said, warning signs still loom. If you kept Keith Foulke, Mike Timlin and Mike Myers (I guess) but swapped Alan Embree, Matt Mantei and John Halama for Jeremi Gonzalez, Cla Meredith and Lenny Dinardo, would there be any dropoff whatsoever? These questions need to be answered. The proper steps have been taken with respect to 2nd Base. Dustin Pedroia is in Pawtucket and as I see it, Mark Bellhorn now has 30-to-45 games to demonstrate that he is the best 2nd Baseman employed by the organization. So far so good, as Bellhorn had what was easily his best game of the season yesterday. Competition ain’t a bad thing, you know.

The final area that may or may not need to be addressed is 1st Base. The Red Sox have received dead-average production from the position thus far, as they rank 15th in MLB in OPS from the position. Under ordinary circumstances, I would be content with this. Only a spoiled baffoon that does not understand the nature of MLB roster construction could have a real beef. When you have the best catcher, DH, a top-3 LF, a top-3 RF, the best CF and so on, merely average production form 1st Base is not the end of the world. I only take exception because Boston is not fielding its best. Roberto Petagine continues to dominate AAA pitching and since he is 34 and has no real MLB track record, his market value falls way short of his potential value to the Boston Red Sox. There is but one argument against calling him up to which I am sensitive. Kevin Millar is an obvious team-favorite and John Olerud, another popular veteran, has performed magnificently since joining the club. If the Sox have determined that the potential lift from Petagine does not justify the clubhouse shake-up that would ensue as a result of the potential departure of either Millar or Olerud, then fine. I’d like to think I know baseball a bit but what I doubtless am altogether ignorant about is a Major League clubhouse and the potential on-field ramifications that could result from such a disruption. I am just not sure that even all the good chemistry in the world can make up for a .575 August OPS from Millar or the re-appearance of the .350/.375 John Olerud.

We’ll see.

The Tribe comes to town tonight, as Bronson Arroyo and Kevin Millwood once again square off.

Another bang-up effort from the Boston Nine and all of a sudden they have opened a 1.5 game lead in the American League East. I don’t know if others agree with me but I thought yesterday’s ballgame was one of the best Boston has played all year. Offensively, the Red Sox put up a .308/.386/.590 line yesterday, with Trot Nixon and Bill Mueller each doubling twice while Manny Ramirez launched a towering home run in the ninth inning. Defensively, the Sox were rock-solid all afternoon. Bill Mueller made a great play on a tricky hop, David Ortiz had a nice game in the field and even started a key 3–6-1 double play off the bat of Jim Thome and Johnny Damon tracked down a few shots in the outfield. And on the pitching side, what can you say? Matt Clement turned in another stellar outing, lowering his ERA to 3.33 and running his record to 9-1. Aside from Chicago’s Mark Buehrle and Toronto’s Roy Halladay, there is not another American League starter I would rather take the mound for my team these days. On the “Theo’s Great Signings List”, Clement is entering rarified air, up there with David Ortiz and Bill Mueller.

Clearly the only thing we are forced to conclude is that the Red Sox have already won it all in 2005. Since Shaughnessy always treated Red Sox failure with such idiocy, I don’t know what I expect from him when the Red Sox are experiencing success. I guess we should expect more idiocy, just a kinder, gentler idiocy. Times are good right now but there’s a long way to go.

Wells and Philly’s best, Brett Myers, today at 1:35.

Recap here, box score here.

Tim Wakefield, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz led the way. The Sox are rolling. Seemingly every night they pitch it and hit it better than the opposition. It’s a pretty good formula for winning, no?

Oh and guess what? First place, bitches. Now hold on.

- Neither Kevin Millar, John Olerud nor Kevin Youkilis are as good as Roberto Petagine (.336/.438/.685), and it’s a real shame that it appears Petagine will never play in Boston. I will never understand why the Sox signed him. What chance did he have to play, if not a scenario in which 1st Base would become a position of weakness and he would unmercifully torture AAA pitching for over 150 plate appearances?

- The Yankees dropped another game to the lowly Devil Rays last night. It was Tampa Bay’s 8th road win of the year and 4th road win in the Bronx. For those of you unable to process what that means, half of Tampa Bay’s road wins have come in Yankee Stadium. Well Larry Mahnken has had enough. He has made the case, not that it is a tough one to make, that Tony Womack is a significant source of the Yankees’ woes and he has organized a petition to have Womack removed from the lineup. Check it out, it’s funny in sort of a sad way. Just be sure you don’t actually sign it.

- The Red Sox are just a measly half-game out of first place. I think the Red Sox are better than the O’s today, but with or without Curt Schilling, I am not so sure they are better than the O’s with a healthy Erik Bedard and Javy Lopez. Lopez appears to be progressing nicely while Bedard remains a mystery.

- Scouring around a bit for a quality blog covering this weekend’s opponent, the Philadelphia Phillies, I have come up with this one, A Citizen’s Blog. I think I’ll add it to the sidebar. Go check it out!

Wakefield and Lieber tonight.

It’s always been a contention of mine that when you start to see a ballclub winning in a variety of ways, it’s probably time to start considering the possibility that said ballclub is a darn good team. In this series alone, against a team that had come in winners of 9 consecutive games, the Red Sox jumped out to an early lead and staved off a ferocious comeback in game one, blew the doors off the Tribe in game two and came back to gut out a close, relatively low-scoring affair in game three.

Another compelling longview indicator is when a club starts to get contributions up and down the roster. A night after mainstays David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez led the way for the Sox, it was Edgar Renteria, John Olerud and Jay Payton that took center stage. The Red Sox won 5-4 last night because they were able to wiggle out of some tenuous situations early and then put up one run, then two more and one run again in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings respectively.

Indians starter Cliff Lee did a pretty nice job, as the only two Boston runs he yielded came on solo home runs by Renteria and Olerud. Those’ll happen though. The real goat for Cleveland was Arthur Rhodes, who continues to post shiny numbers year in and year out but I swear to you I have never seen him pitch well. Never. I don’t know where he accumulates some of the statistics he does but every year when I see him pitch you can bet that he will have a sub-1.00 ERA that will flash on the TV while he is warming up and then sure as the sun will rise the following morning, he will proceed to surrender a lead. If there are any Tribe, O’s or M’s fans out there that stop by, please, feel free to recount a time that Rhodes did in fact do a good job.

I suppose I’d be remiss if I did not mention that two other Tribe relievers, Bobby Howry and Bob Wickman, also blew this thing. It was a great win for the Sox, maybe the best all year when you consider the comeback nature of the victory, on the road to boot and on a night that Baltimore, New York and Minnesota also dropped games. The Sox now sit 1.5 games ahead of Minnesota for the Wild Card and just a game back of Baltimore for the Division lead. Cowboy Up, you Idiots! Or something?

*shrugs*

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Check out this piece in today’s Globe about Eric Van, one of SoSH’s best posters and a real hoot to spend some time with. I have had the opportunity to do just that at a couple of the SoSH Bashes. His posts over at SoSH were of such quality that John Henry himself hired him.

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Down in Pawtucket, Dustin Pedroia made his debut, hitting a double and notching an RBI. Roberto Petagine ran his OPS to 1.127.

Now we’re talking. 19 runs in 2 games against the team that came into this series as the AL leader in ERA, a 40-30 record, the Wild Card lead, Manny Ramirez with a 1.357 OPS over the last 7 days and a starting pitching staff that appears to have found its way.

The Red Sox won 9-2 last night, on the strength of two home runs from David Ortiz, another from Manny Ramirez and a sparkling outing from Bronson Arroyo. The Red Sox have outscored the Tribe, winners of 9 straight coming into Monday’s game, 19-11 over the first 2 games of the series. Boston has settled into a nice spot, wherein what you see is probably what you will get save for a few areas of the club.

For starters, the question of first base and who amongst Kevin Millar, John Olerud and Roberto Petagine might be the longterm solution still lingers. Sure Millar has posted a 1.075 OPS in June, but it would be a real shame to be lured into thinking that this is the Millar we will see for the remainder of the year. Over the last week or so, we have begun to see him fall back to earth again. Giving up on Millar now is not the right solution but neither is blind loyalty, particularly when Petagine has a line of .324/.429/.691 going for the PawSox. I would have no problem hanging in with Millar if there were no other viable options in-house. Certainly he is not so bad that he is worth executing some lopsided deal wherein the Red Sox would have to concede some of their future. But there is no need to go with roster-filler everyday when you have a guy in Pawtucket that immediately could step in and be one of the AL’s 3 or 4 most productive 1st Baseman.

Another question is 2nd Base. Like Millar, Mark Bellhorn has shown life over the last few days but has really not played much better than replacement level in 2005. Here’s another case, however, where a trade doesn’t necessarily make sense, not with Dustin Pedroia raking at a .324/.409/.508 clip in AA Portland. I see little reason to believe that Pedroia could not be a more-than-suitable Major League 2nd Baseman right now.

The final piece of the puzzle to making the Red Sox a truly complete ballclub would be to patch up the bullpen. Immediate help will arrive in the form of the starting pitcher that is bumped out to the ‘pen as a result of Curt Schilling’s return. Help may also arrive in the form of turnarounds from either Alan Embree, Keith Foulke or both. But like with 2nd and 1st Base, the Red Sox needn’t look far nor part with real assets in order to acquire the sort help they need. Lenny Dinardo, Mark Malaska, Abe Alvarez, Cla Meredith and Jeremi Gonzalez all represent potential sources of immediate help. Boston would be wise to entertain these options before deciding that the bullpen’s failures do in fact necessitate a trade.

The Red Sox are firing on all cylinders right now but between 1st Base, 2nd Base and relief pitching, there are still areas that a diligent team would need to monitor, regardless of how much short term success they may be experiencing. These are the areas that could potentially preclude a 2nd consecutive World Championship down the road. Fortunately, alternatives from within abound.

Since we fancy ourselves purveyors of the longview and take a certain amount of pride in our ability to hold off of the panic button after tough losses, it would be more than a little hypocritical of me to come on here this morning and express any real excitiement over last night’s win.

David Wells and C.C. Sabathia squared off last night and neither threw particularly well. Sabathia cruised through the first three innings before yielding three consecutive hits to Edgar Renteria, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez in the fourth, the final hit a home run on a pitch just above Ramirez’s shoetops. Things really came apart in the fifth for Sabathia, as bad luck and bad pitching combined to do him in. Bad luck in the sense that Manny Ramirez’s ground-rule double was of the broken-bat variety. Bad luck in the sense that Aaron Boone misplayed a double-play ball off the bat of David Ortiz, choosing to throw home to unsuccessfully cut down Mark Bellhorn instead of spinning a 5-4-3 double play. Bad luck in the sense that Eric Wedge, his manager, hung with him for too long. Everything else that inning for Sabathia? Bad pitching. After the fifth inning, the Red Sox had a 9-4 lead and their starter David Wells was finished, having labored through five innings (he gave up 12 baserunners) in 110 pitches.

The bullpen was terrible but really no different than it has been all year. Mike Myers was shaky for 2/3rds of an inning, Mike Timlin lights out for an inning and a third, Alan Embree brutal for 2/3rds of an inning and Keith Foulke even worse for an inning and a third himself. If there was any doubt before, there can be no more. This bullpen needs help. Cla Meredith, Abe Alvarez and Jeremi Gonzalez continue to impress in Pawtucket. With the trade deadline just over a month away, the Red Sox need to explore in-house options before conceding real prospects for an extra bullpen arm or two. As we all found out with Scott Sauerbeck in 2003, relievers are an unpredictable lot, and therefore, are rarely worth parting with valuable assets.

The good news from last night was that Manny Ramirez and Mark Bellhorn showed signs of life. Manny, though still not the most alert player, appears to be on the verge of breaking out. Bellhorn displayed a couple of great at-bats last night.

Bronson Arroyo and Kevin Millwood tonight.

7 stellar innings from Matt Clement and a couple of unlikely triples by David Ortiz and Bill Mueller were all the Sox needed to coast to an 8-0 victory to close out a 5-1 homestand. Clement’s outing was particularly noteworthy. Seven innings of 3 hit ball, getting almost half of his outs by way of the strikeout. It was probably Clement’s best start of the season and a further lift to a team that has gotten fantastic pitching from its starters on the homestand.

The game got out of hand early with the Sox putting up a 5 spot in the 3rd inning, keyed by the Papi triple and a 2 run blast by the suddenly scorching Jay Payton (who’s apparently decided to showcase himself for a trade). All of the starters had hits, with the exception of John Olerud and Mark Bellhorn.

The much maligned Alan Embree finished out the last 2 innings, striking out 3 and allowing just a single hit. Embree focused entirely on his fastball, touching the mid-90s, which is a decent sign for folks who’d like to see Embree hang around for a while longer. On the other hand, it is hard to read too much into 2 innings of a blowout against a team who wants to get home.

The Sox head to Cleveland for a lefty-lefty matchup, with David Wells (with his 1.64 ERA in June) against C.C. Sabathia. Sabathia, since 2002, has mediocre numbers against the Sox — 4 homers allowed, 4 BB, 4 K in about 22 innings. The pitching matchup favors Boston, but all bets are off when the Sox are on the road.

The Sox bullpen (and offense) wasted a nice start by Tim Wakefield, giving up runs in the 8th and 9th innings to lose to the Pirates 2-0. Once again, the culprits were Alan Embree, Matt Mantei, and John Halama. With a handful of pitchers doing well in Pawtucket — including 3 lefties, you’d think that this could spell the end for Embree and Halama.

Chris Snow talks about the bullpen situation in his Globe recap, but seems to come to some very odd conclusions. Snow starts his article:

Alan Embree hadn’t pitched since June 10 at Wrigley Field. Embree’s season ERA that day swelled to 7.00, his ERA in his preceding nine appearances to 15.25. As the Red Sox rolled to five consecutive wins between Sunday and Friday, Embree sat. So, too, did John Halama, for seven days

Alright–makes sense. Embree and Halama are rusty because Francona has been sticking with the Timlin, Foulke, Myers, Mantei crew who’ve been moderately successful out of the pen. Timlin, in particular, has been getting the bulk of the work. So it is perfectly logical to point out that some guys have been underutilized and that might contribute to their craptastic pitching when they do get an inning. Bullpen management has been a flaw of Francona’s throughout his entire career, save the month of October 2004, when he seemed to stumble upon perfect usage of his pitchers.

Snow, and maybe Terry or Theo Epstein, seem to take the wrong conclusion from this pitcher usage issue.

All this underscores a philosophical discussion Francona and general manager Theo Epstein have with some regularity. Should the club go with 11 pitchers or 12? The answer last night appeared to be 12, meaning seven relievers, but the larger issue might be the actual components of the bullpen, not the number of components.

How in the hell would having 12 pitchers have made a difference last night? Guh? The Sox would have another arm who’d been underutilized and likely struggle coming into his first game in more than a week?

Thankfully Snow does state what is the obvious problem: the Sox have 1 good reliever at this point in time (Timlin). Foulke may be on his way back to respectability. Myers is a situational reliever, but he’s done his job. Honestly, at this point, those are the only guys getting it done. Mantei has been oddly streaky and currently is on a disasterous streak. Halama and Embree have been uniformly awful.

What is a team to do?

Well, when Curt Schilling comes back, presumably one of the starters is moving to the pen. Right now, Arroyo is the odds on favorite, but I think Wade Miller might be closing in to make that race even money. Schilling’s activation likely spells the end for whomever remains out of Halama or Embree.

How to replace the other? It’s quite simple:

Abe Alvarez - 77.1 IP, 4.31 ERA, 59 K, 20 BB
Mark Malaska - 39.1 IP, 3.89 ERA, 43 K, 19 BB
Lenny DiNardo - 48. IP, 4.13 ERA, 43 K, 17 BB

Any of those 3 pitchers could likely step in and outperform John Halama at this point in time as the situational LOOGY/mop-up man. Lenny DiNardo is probably the best choice. He pitched ok in 2004 out of the pen, and looked pretty good in his 1+ inning this year. Francona seems afraid to use him, but if you take away his other toys (Embree, Halama), he’ll learn to make the call to DiNardo.

Wade Miller struggled in the 1st, giving up 3 of the 4 runs he would surrender in the Sox 6-5 victory over the Bucs. The runs weren’t entirely Miller’s fault, as he was done in by a couple of poor defensive plays by Johnny Damon and Jason Varitek.

The Sox would answer back, taking a 4-3 lead in the 2nd on a Bill Mueller double and Mark Bellhorn 3-run homer off of Pittsburgh starter Josh Fogg. Pittsburgh would tie it up in the 4th off of Miller when old friend Freddy Sanchez laced a single to center. The Sox regained their 1 run lead with a run in their half of the 4th on a Mueller triple that scored Trot Nixon.

The score remained 5-4 until the 7th. By this point, Matt Mantei was in to relieve Miller (a not stellar 6 IP, 4 runs, 4BB, 4K). Mantei sandwiched a Matt Lawton single and Jason Bay double around a Sanchez popout. Francona brought in Mike Myers to face Daryle Ward. Ward grounded out, scoring Lawton to tie the game.

The Sox played some nifty defense in the 8th to keep the game tied. With Jack Wilson on second, Manny Ramirez fielded a Sanchez single and threw a strike to the plate. Varitek neatly blocked home with his left leg. Wilson tried to slide through the leg, didn’t get the plate, and Varitek tagged him out to end the inning and keep the game tied.

Kevin Millar lead off one of the stranger rallies you will ever see. Millar battled 10 pitches before lacing an opposite field ground rule double to start things. Chris Snow summed the at-bat up nicely:

Just before 11 p.m., Millar was again moving at 100 smiles an hour, recounting an 11-pitch battle he waged with Rick White to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game, an at-bat that ended with Millar going the other way (not a typo, folks)

Tito used Kevin Youkilis to pinch run for Millar. Yes, that Kevin Youkilis. Varitek attempted to sac bunt Youks over to 3rd. He was successful, and ended up on 1st for good measure when Rick White couldn’t make the play. The Pirates walked Mueller to load the bases with no outs for Mark Bellhorn. Bellhorn grounded to first, forcing Youkilis out at the plate and keeping the bases loaded. Finally, Johnny Damon came through to single home Varitek.

Not the prettiest of games, but the Sox are doing what they need to do: beating teams they should beat. They also got some (likely) good news from Curt Schilling, who expects to make one start before the All-Star break. A productive Schilling is a necessity if the Red Sox want to repeat in 2005.

Off to my cousin’s wedding in good ol’ Omaha, Nebraska. Fortunately, my cousin’s wedding is not the only event there this weekend. The College World Series will also be in town.

(USA TODAY photo)

Be back Monday!

It’s hard to convince someone the Sox have good pitching when all you have to do is look up the team ERA and find that, even after last night’s gem by David Wells, the figure still sits at 4.90. Well the bullpen has been gasoline alley you say? You’re right but Boston starters have posted a hardly more impressive number of 4.75. And yet you can go and sort Major League Baseball pitchers by the number of Quality Starts they have posted and you will find 4 Red Sox starters on the first page of the leaderboard. Wade Miller does not appear on it simply because he started the season on the DL. So as bad as the pitching has been, far more often than not Boston gets a strong performance out of its starter. Problem is when they get a sub-par performance, it is truly sub-par.

There was nothing sub-par about the work David Wells did last night. For the 3rd time in his last 4 starts, he featured exceptional command and command is everything for Boomer. He doesn’t throw terribly hard and at times his breaking ball can flatten. When he is on with his control, he can fight through a flat breaking ball and still be effective. When he has his breaking ball going but he is missing his spots a bit, again, he still can manage. But when Wells puts it all together it is truly a thing of beauty. He stays fluid and collected on the mound, duplicating the same impeccable mechanics pitch after frustrating pitch for the opposition. Last night was just one of those nights. He had it all going and nobody in Cincinnati’s lineup could do a damn thing about it. Wells yielded just a hit and an uncharacteristic two walks to a good Reds offense last night. He worked 7 innings before handing the ball over to Mike Timlin and Keith Foulke, who closed the 1-hit deal.

Offensively, the Sox hit .313/.405/.469 on the game, a total team effort capped by a home run in his third consecutive game by Manny Ramirez. I don’t know what to make of his recent resurgence but boy do I hope it’s the real deal. Boston won’t have such an easy go offensively tonight, as Aaron Harang takes the hill for Cincinnati. He has been tough, posting phenomenal strikeout totals this season. The Red Sox will counter with their iffiest starter of late, Bronson Arroyo. Arroyo has the unfortunate task of straightening things out against a lineup featuring some tremendous left-handed batters, whose ilk have brutalized Arroyo to the tune of an .869 OPS.

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Elsewhere around the Majors, check out this game recap. Sounds like the Nats and Angels played an exciting one out in Anaheim, with both Managers getting under one another’s skin.

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Roberto Petagine AAA OPS-Watch: 1.096

Two pitchers that were awarded almost identical contracts this past off-season hooked up last night at Fenway. And while there are mountains and mountains of evidence to show just how much better Matt Clement is than Eric Milton, last night served as a pretty good microcosm. Guess which pitcher was priced just about right?

Eric Milton gave up 11 hits and 2 walks, allowing 9 earned runs in 5 and 2/3rds innings. Matt Clement allowed just 7 baserunners in 8 innings, striking out nine along the way. Not that this is anything earth-shattering to anybody but it was another data point that the Red Sox are, by and large, run quite well while the Reds, to say the least, are not. There was oodles of evidence of both on display last night, beginning with the starting pitchers. Eric Milton, in his last three seasons, featured a 92 ERA+ in 2004, 17 innings pitched in 2003 and a 91 ERA+ in 2002. He does sport a flashy (if meaningless) career win % of .555. This track record earned him a $25 million contract in Cincinnati. On the other hand, Matt Clement won just 9 games last season and has a sub-.500 career win %. But because his impressive K-rates and sinking walk-rates suggested that he had figured something out over the last three seasons, the Red Sox felt comfortable awarding him the contract they did. One could argue that of the big free agent pitcher names last off-season, Clement was the only one that was priced about in line with what reasonably could have been expected of him. I found the contrast between Milton and Clement fascinating. Two pitchers making the same exact amount of money, one a lefty with a nice win percentage and crappy peripherals and one a righty with very good peripherals and an unremarkable win percentage. I think the Red Sox guaranteed their $25 million to the right guy.

As an organization, the Reds are lost and it’s plain to see for anyone paying any attention whatsoever. Adam Dunn batted sixth last night. Rich Aurilia has a Reds uniform and even takes the field with regularity. We already discussed Milton. Paul Wilson was given a lucrative contract and Austin Kearns was just demoted for putting up numbers that the Reds would be thrilled about if he were only 10 years older. One of the lasting points of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball for me was the notion that in baseball, no level of incompetence is unacceptable. No team evidences this phenomenon like the Reds.

Offensively last night, the Sox received contributions up and down the lineup. Manny Ramirez is showing signs of heating up and Edgar Renteria had a nice game. David Ortiz, Johnny Damon, Kevin Millar, Jason Varitek and Jay Payton all made significant contributions as well. Boston should be looking to take 5 of 6 this week against Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Last night was a good start to the homestand.

For a more thorough recap of the game itself, here’s Nick Cafardo.

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Roberto Petagine OPS-Watch: 1.103

The Sox have a 5-2 lead in the 6th right now, coming off a rough road-trip through St. Louis and Chicago against the best the NL Central has to offer.

Time to get fat now, with 12 of 18 at home and 9 of those coming against sub-.500 competition.

Back tomorrow with a recap.

Sully’s woman is a Cubs fan. My best friend is one too.

They are happier than we are tonight, I reckon.

Dusty Baker annoys me.