Frankly, we'd like to know what Daisuke Matsuzaka did to alienate his teammates. Does he play "Gyroball" constantly in the clubhouse? Mix wasabi in with the Ben Gay as a lockerroom prank? There must be some reason why his lineup consistently fails to give him any run support, making him 1-3 against the Devil Rays to his 12-7 record against the rest of the league. Don Orsillo put it best late in the game last......

You had to be made of stone, or the world's most jaded individual, to watch yesterday's Celtics press conference and not believe that things are going to change 'round here in a hurry. New Celtic Kevin Garnett, along with veteran Paul Pierce and fairly new Celtic Ray Allen, told the media and the world that he's happy to be here, he's thrilled to be with two veterans and All-Stars, and he's a Red Sox fan......

Two previous games, two total runs. Thursday night, runs were scoring every time you turned around. 14-9 Red Sox. Such is baseball. Recapping all the runs chronologically would take forever, so let's look at a few highlights. Like Manny Ramirez: Two home runs, including a bomb in the second that landed near Akron. Mike Lowell: three-for-five. And (sit down) Wily Mo Pena (!), who went 4-for-5 (!) with a 3-run home run that blew the......

Our familiarity with German legends is admittedly not what it's supposed to be, but we are familiar with the tale of Faust, the medieval alchemist who made a deal with the devil to acquire riches and earthly pleasures. The tale's already been updated and retold once in a baseball context, in Damn Yankees. Now, we're not suggesting that Indians pitcher Fausto Carmona has made his own deal with the devil, but there's certainly circumstantial evidence.......

Remember May? When this kind of thing happened all the time? The Red Sox and White Sox played a close, competitive game for six innings. Then the Chicago bullpen melted down in a big way, and the good Sox found themselves on the right end of a 11-2 win. The Red Sox had a 2-1 lead going into the sixth, when a J.D. Drew RBI double and a Coco Crisp RBI single gave Kason Gabbard......

Perhaps the blue shirts calling the shots at Fenway Park on Friday night were just bitter that they couldn't hang out in Harvard/Hogwart's Square with several thousands of their closest Harry Potter fans. Maybe they were concerned that J.D. Drew would further aggravate his hamstring by running all the way around the bases. We'd even like to think that they were just curious about whether Terry Francona would get himself thrown out of a game......

And the lead is down to seven. The Red Sox have completely stopped getting any value out of the back end of the rotation. Wakefield got slapped around Tuesday, and last night, Julian Tavarez was pitching well until he ran into the Fifth Inning of Doom en route to a 6-5 loss to the lowly-unless-they're-playing-us KC Royals. Tavarez hasn't won in a month, and the SchillingWatch is on overdrive. The rejuvenated Manny homered, and Varitek......

A night after Sox pitcher Kason Gabbard completed a Cinderella-esque nine innings at Fenway Park, the spotlight fell on a different belle of the ball for a fairy tale turn on the mound. The story didn't play out the way we would have written it - it was Leo Nunez, not Tim Wakefield, who was able to celebrate on Tuesday night. Nunez bounced back from a Fenway disaster two years ago to lead Kansas City......

The Red Sox rotation needs no introduction. We already have three ten-game winners, a potential Hall-of-Famer on the injured list, and warhorse Julian Tavarez on the back end. But, with possible apologies to Curt Schilling's one-hitter in Oakland, none of them have come up with a gem like youngster Kason Gabbard threw last night. The 25-year-old lefty threw the Sox' third complete game and second shutout last night, bedazzling the Royals to the tune of......

In a lot of ways, managing a baseball team is remarkably easy, compared to coaching other sports. The action is fairly linear: there aren't 11 defensemen or five matchups to keep an eye on at once, and a lot of the actual "coaching" is farmed out to the coaches. Plus, there's the 100-year-old unwritten "book" that tells you how to do your job, and if you stick to the book, you have a defense against......

There's an old saying in baseball...well, there are a lot, like "Take two and hit to right", or "Don't bunt to break up a no-hitter", but there's an old theory that when you get lots of men on base, it's in your best interest to drive them in. A little crazy, to be sure, but it's a piece of wisdom that the Red Sox have been ignoring for some time. Not last night. The Sox......

Well, the Red Sox got to Felix Hernandez. That's the good news. Unfortunately, the Mariners got to Kason Gabbard, and really got to relievers Manny Delcarmen and Javier Lopez, and won a back-and-forth ballgame 8-7. Lopez, in particular, was victimized by a Richie Sexson home run in the sixth from which they never recovered. Manny got the day off, and his replacement (Eric Hinske) homered, so that's going according to plan. Julio Lugo got the......

You didn't have to be Einstein to see that last night's game had "trap" written all over it - letdown after a big series, Tavarez pitching over his head, Jeff Weaver the stat-challenged opposition. And the Red Sox stepped right into it. They made Weaver look like, if not Cy Young, a competent pitcher (not the world's easiest task), and Tavarez couldn't find his A-game. Could he be hurt? No one is saying anything yet,......

Were we really worried last season that Josh Beckett wouldn't be able to cut it as a member of the Red Sox rotation? Were we really concerned about his history of injuries, his adjusting to the American League, his anything? Well, we're not worried now, brother. Beckett's 11-1, sailing along, and making the Padres (admittedly not an AL lineup, but still an NL power) look as docile as the critter pictured here. With all of......

Even though the Devern Hansack experiment went horribly wrong Saturday night, the Sox had no choice but to go to the Pawtucket well again Sunday. So they brought up lefty Kason Gabbard to start Sunday's rain-delayed tilt with the Braves. And it went as well as we possibly could have hoped. Gabbard cooled off the Atlanta bats, which were still steaming from Saturday's 14-run nightcap, to the tune of five innings pitched, six hits, two......

The happiest Red Sox fans around have to be the ones who stopped watching baseball around 7:30 last night. They would have seen Game 1 of the doubleheader, a 13-3 Sox rout/Home Run Derby. They would have seen the Yankees' nightmarish loss to the Mets. But most importantly, they would have been spared Game 2, in which Atlanta demolished the Sox 14-0. A wild day all around. Game One was a laugher thanks in part......

With a miserable rain forcing the postponement of last night's Sox-Tigers game, our thoughts turn to geography. Yes, they really do. Specifically, to a subject we've been noticing a lot lately: the fact that the Red Sox seem to attract a large number of players whose last names are also the names of towns in our fair Commonwealth. So let's hit the road and take a tour of Massachusetts, Red Sox-style. Close to Boston, we......

This space has been quiet on the Red Sox front during their August swoon, but Bostonist is back in full force. While lamenting the last 2 wins against the defending World Champion Chicago White Sox, a few thoughts are on Bostonist’s brain. Kevin “Town Crier” Youkilis. Geesh, just another guy who doesn’t get it. Earlier in the year Kevin was quoted saying “every game is game 7 of the World Series, every night.” How......