Final Score: Boston Red Sox 4, Cleveland Indians 2Clearly the rumors of Josh Beckett's demise were greatly exaggerated. Seven innings, seven strike outs, three hits, two runs, one walk (neat line, huh?) made for another ordinary day at the office where all of Beckett's pitches worked as planned, batters swung and missed when appropriate and most of the Indians offense didn't know what to do with themselves. Thanks to two DPs, Beckett even faced the minimum number of batters for six innings. Add last night's appearance up with pissed-off Schilling from Monday and the Zen Master's stylings tonight and I think calling for the brooms for the second series in a row isn't unreasonable, because things are just clicking like magic.
It's almost frightening to say this, but every win puts me in an odder and odder place as a Red Sox fan. Baseball Prospectus predicts 106 wins for the Red Sox this season, a rate so fantastic that if the projections are even close (i.e., over 100 wins) they will make the 2007 Sox the winningest team in Red Sox history since 1946, when Doerr, Pesky, Williams, DiMaggio, Ferriss, Hughson et all put together 104 wins and a .675 winning percentage to grab the AL title (and face an ignominious fate in the World Series, but we won't go there). Indeed, if the Sox go on to capture their projected 106 wins, they will beat out the 1912 team as the winningest Red Sox team ever, which boggles the mind.
The upshot of all of this encapsulated awesome is that I've started to develop certain expectations of how a game will progress. First expectation: when the Red Sox get a hit or a walk in the first inning, that runner will score. At this point, Kevin "The Man" Youkilis will probably be involved, but the end result is the same: the Sox will draw first blood (especially if they're batting first) and take an early lead. Second expectation: the starter will go six innings and surrender less runs than his offense generates. Third expectation: the bullpen is solid enough to protect any lead, even if there are a few bumps along the way. As you can tell, taken together these expectations mean that the game is over as soon as the Sox get their first base runner, which is a very, very nice feeling to have as a fan. I can even enjoy the bumps for the moments of excitement they create, the nervous tension that exists in a vacuum because right now, even a loss or two doesn't matter. It's so very, very sublime.
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