Boston Red Sox 1, Toronto Blue Jays 5
Writing about games like this one is always pretty frustrating because overall, you can’t really assign blame: Burnett pitched as expected when the Jays grabbed him last winter and shut down the Boston bats in the process. What was pleasantly surprising was Kevin Jarvis, who pulled a five inning, 97 pitch, three run effort out of nowhere (seriously; the guy given up a less than impressive 14 runs in about 7 innings), followed up by an equally strong inning and two thirds by the now-health Lenny DiNardo. Sure, Jarvis got the loss, but when the heart of your order is Loretta, Youkilis, Lowell and Hinske, not scoring many runs isn’t surprising.
But partial relief is right around the corner: Gonzalez, Nixon and Varitek completed their rehab assignments yesterday and should be available to play today, although only Gonzo will make the start. Still, with all of the terrible things that have happened to Boston over the past month, getting anyone back is huge. Plus, Papi is feeling good and pushing to come back early next week, even if his doctors are making noises like they think he’s crazy to want to play. And even if Tavarez is probably going to start for Schilling tomorrow, even if Papelbon is going to spend his labor day getting an MRI, even if the Sox will spend the rest of the season as a spoiler to the various American League contenders, the dark month of August is starting to fade away. Or so I hope.
Later this afternoon, Beckett goes for win number 15 and the series win against the tricky Gustavo Chacin. We’ll see what sort of lineup ends up fighting this one out today for Boston. GO SOX!!!
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