Going Around the Horn

Fresh off a three game sweep of the Yankees, and riding a 10 game winning streak, the Sox are in Cleveland tonight to face Cliff Lee, last year's CY Young award winner.....who appears to have found his minor league form again. They're likely pretty tired after they were busy out-classing the Yankees all weekend, but the Sox have their best starter (thus far) on the mound tonight in Tim Wakefield....with that, let's quickly go around the horn....

-Julio Lugo has been activated by the Sox but is not in tonight's starting lineup. No need to rush anything this early in the season, especially with T Murphy's boy Nick Green playing well.

-JD Drew is sitting out tonight's game with a tight left quad. Jeff Bailey (who has been studly) will take his place in right....insert JD band aid insult here.

-Dice-K threw long toss today and will participate in a bullpen session on Wednesday. If all goes well, he'll be making a rehab start down in Triple A next week....which sets up the question of what to do with Masterson. His best value appears to be as a starter, but he's likely to go back to the bullpen, at least for this year. Tito might be right when he says this Red Sox team goes 18 or 20 deep on the pitching front (see Bowden, Clay, Bard, etc).

- The NY media appears to be up in arms about Jacoby stealing home, the curtain call, and the laughter in Boston's dugout. They're crying in New York and saying that the Red Sox "rubbed it in" and "there should be retaliation". Let's keep in mind this is their media, and not the actual players...but come on, your team got swept, your bullpen looks terrible, best starter got rocked, all world closer is hanging his head in shame, and lineup is looking old. See Tony Mazz's article for additional takeaways from the weekend series..... your team was handled, deal with it.

Go Sox.