Red Sox Roundup

Home for a very brief, and wet, four-game homestand, the Red Sox toed up with the Oakland Athletics before heading off on the last road trip of the season. The Sox dropped two of the games, both of which were painful. Game One showcased another unknown pitcher Boston had never seen before, Joe Blanton, and kept the Boston bats relatively silent and baffled. This continued the trend of seeing the Boston offense fall flat on its face whenever a new arm appears on the bump. Speaking of trends, Bostonist was hoping Curt Schilling's performance had turned the corner after the stellar job in NY a little over a week ago, thereby bucking his losing trend. Sorry, no such luck. Schilling gave up six runs on his way to loss number 8.

Games Two and Three were more of the same when it came to the Sox bats - anemic hitting and low scoring. When a game is won with a walk-off hit-by-pitch, you know it's ugly. Friday's game was decided, 3-2, on said HBP (thanks Manny!), and Saturday's 2-1 wincame behind a great pitching performance by Bronson Arroyo. After attending parts of these wet, rainy games, sitting directly beneath the right field upper deck overhang's lip, Bostonist knows what the deal is with this "Chinese Water Torture" thing, and can attest to the "torture" part. It's no good. No good at all. We'll keep Game Four's summary as brief as possible, because it was an ugly one - 12-3, A's. Clement's performance was awful. There's no more that needs to be said.

With the Yankees nipping at our heels, 1.5 games behind, the knee-jerk reaction is to panic and concede the pennant. After all, there's only so much a Red Sox fan can try to undo after an 86-year window of the same old gloom-and-doom mantra. The Red Sox players, however, have their blinders strapped on tightly and are showing no signs of panic. After yesterday's game they made their way to Tampa in the usual jovial, goofy, "idiotic" spirit. Their get-away's supplemental entertainment came in the form of all rookies having to wear womens' clothing on their way to the airport. Alejandro Machado, Jonathan Papelbon, Manny Delcarmen, et al, took their hazing in stride and played along. If they're preoccupied with any sort of slide they're having, it's not showing.

And finally, speaking of rookies, the latest news is that Craig Hansen, the power-pitching reliever from St. Johns who had been shutting down batters in Double-A Portland, has been called up to see some big-league action in Tampa. Now the question is, how long until Sox fans see an "MMMBop" reference on the Boston Dirt Dogs homepage? Because we know it's coming!

Update: The Sox have also called up highly touted shortstop Hanley Ramirez.

Update 2: Didn't take Francona long to put Hansen to work - he came out in the top of the 5th inning and proceeded to blow away the Devil Ray batters. If anyone threw a baseball at Bostonist, 97mph, the end result would most likely involve soiled pantalones.

Also - the countdown is still on ... Steve Silva, don't let us down.