Game 81

Final Score:

Boston Red Sox 11, Oakland Athletics 0

An EXCELLENT night for baseball. But we must not get too confident...it's pulling off the second win in a row that's the real issue right now. In God and Pedro we trust. But last night, man, it was like everything was finally going in the right order. Wakefield's knuckleball was dancing for the second week in a row, Barry Zito had nothing, the bottom of the Red Sox lineup (Nixon, Mirabelli and Mueller) combined for seven (yes, seven) runs, including a Bill Mueller homerun in the second inning, Damon went 5 for 6, Millar went 3 for 4...it was awesome. And the Yankees lost. And the Rangers. And the White Sox. Seven games out of first in the AL East, alone in second place for the wildcard and two games behind Oakland and Texas. Word.

In other news, Scott Williamson is listed as being on the DL indefinitely by ESPN.com, while the Boston Globe reports that he's going to Cincinnati to get a second opinion on his elbow, which suggests that *perhaps* this injury isn't quite as bad as an indefinite stay on the DL might suggest. Ellis Burks is also going back in for knee surgery. I really feel for this guy - it's terrible that he can't seem to get the chance to just come back and play. With his seven innings last night, Wakefield now has 1,757 and 2/3 career innings, passing Mel Parnell for fourth on the all time Sox list.

Mark Redman comes back to Boston tonight to face Pedro, with his splits of a .350 or so average and 21 earned runs over about 27 innings in the past four years against the Sox, compared with Pedro's splits of a .213 average and 7 earned runs over about 21 innings against the A's. Gotta love them stats. I'll be watching tonight on ESPN, wearing The Hat and The Shirt and attempting to teach my roomate's cat the virtues of a good game of baseball (he's a kitten - you gotta get 'em young). YANKEES SUCK!