Sloppy wins are still wins

Tonight will be the first time I get to really pay attention to Daisuke this season.  Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.

Tonight will be the first time I get to really pay attention to Daisuke this season. Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.

I don’t know about you, but I thoroughly enjoyed baseball last night.

And, ugly though it was, you don’t get extra points for easy wins so I’ll take it.  John Lackey’s ERA might have gone up but he the number in  his “W” column did too and, for now, that’s good enough for me.  Hideki Okajima, Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon pitched 3 hitless innings after Lackey’s exit.  Adrian Beltre and Darnell McDonald were the only Sox to not have hits last night  – man, I missed the Blue Jays!

The Sox are now 17-16 and, thanks to the win and the losses of both the Rays and the Yankees, are now 5.5 games out of first.   Last night is proof that anything can happen this season.

Along with the Rays and Yankees adding to the good baseball night, Bronson Arroyo pitched seven innings last night, giving up five hits and one run (on a home run).  He has an ERA of 5.36 and last night was only his second win in seven starts.  I mention this not only because I’m still following Bronson and am pleased to see him do well but to illustrate that no team’s fans should feel entitled to winning.  Cincinnati is paying Bronson an awful lot of money to struggle this year and the Reds are in second with a 17 -15 record (the Sox are in fourth at 17-16…I don’t want to hear any fans outside our division argue that there isn’t a big difference between the American League East and everyone else).

In case you missed it, I put a poll up this weekend to see how fans were feeling.  Given the usual tone of my readers, I’m not surprised at the results (and please vote if you haven’t yet!  Just to feed my curiosity!).

So we find out that Josh Beckett’s next start is being moved and Tim Wakefield will start in his place tomorrow afternoon.  I’m happy to be seeing Wake pitch (honestly worried there might not be many more opportunities to do so) but worry about what we’re going to go through with Beckett.  I’m torn.  Do I want this to be nothing so he can continue to pitch or do I want it to be a genuine injury so we can excuse what has gone on thus far (especially this weekend)?  I don’t want him to be hurt, really I don’t, but I want him to be fixed.  In my mind, a real injury can be fixed but poor performances with no excuses really can’t.  This’ll be interesting to watch unfold.  And by “interesting” I mean, most likely, extremely painful.

Daisuke Matsuzaka and Dana Eveland on the mound tonight and we’ll be here live chatting.  Join us!

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