Groundhog day at Fenway

It was much of the same at Fenway Park. This time however, Dice-K made sure there were no comebacks and less screaming in my apartment. The Sox lineup continues to hit everything...and nearly everyone is swinging a hot bat. Too many highlights to discuss all of them, but first the offense: It's safe to say David Ortiz is seeing some good pitches because of the rest of the lineup's success (thanks especially to Youk). He is just too good of a hitter not to put the bat on the ball, and will carry this team into the playoffs. Jed Lowrie, with 29 rbi, has the second most rbi for a short stop after the all star break (Johnny Peralta is first). Those 29 rbi are also equal to Coco Crisp's season total.

And now the pitching: Dice-K continues a new and promising trend of going deep into games. He has issued less walks and is getting more outs earlier in counts, thus allowing him to go 7 or 8 innings. As good as he's been this season, I still feel as though he's not getting the proper support for a possible Cy-Young award. At 14-2, and with a 2.74 era and 103 k's his numbers match up well with nearly anyone else in the AL. His run support is high, but the numbers above don't lie, he's been damn good.

The Red Sox go from facing the team with the worst ERA to playing the team with the best, Toronto, which had a league-high 3.64 ERA entering Thursday. It will be a good test to see how good this lineup really is with some tough pitching match ups.

Misc ITM Comments:

- The Dodgers left fielder believes he gets his power from his hair.....if he wasn't a million dollar baseball player he would either be dead or in a mental institution for sure.

-Why are the Yankees still being shown by the national media as being "in it" within the AL East race? They are 9.5 games out, if it was any other team they would not be discussed. In fact, that is the exact case with the NL West, they are only showing the Dodgers and Arizona. Annoying.

(pic source: AP)