Sox Tack on Another Series Win

I apologize for not posting sooner, I realize that I have 2 games to talk about. Fortunately for me, both games I need to talk about turned out to be wins, which makes it a lot easier to write about. Ok, so the Sox drop a heartbreaker in the series opener and bounce back with vengeance. The offense exploded in the last 2 games of this series with the Dodgers, if I may reference my last post where I said that we will see if we have a great team here based on their ability to bounce back or not after that bad loss on Friday, well I think they answered my question.

First lets talk about Saturday, the offense exploded for 9 runs and Mark Buerhle was..... well, Mark Buerhle. He completely shut down the Dodgers and scattered 7 hits and 2 runs over 7 innings, vintage Buerhle. What was most impressive about this win for Mark was that it improved his overall inter league record to 24-6, thats best all time, in the history of the Big. Congrats Mark. On top of that, Buerhle is now 10-0 in his last 12 inter league starts.... that is an absolutely ridiculous stat, it really shows how dominant he is during inter league play. 

Sox came out and dominated this entire game from the start, knocking their ex teammate Jon Garland out in the 5th inning and shutting down the Dodger offense, highlighted by great pitching and pretty solid defense. Sox took this one easy, 9-2

Offensive highlights for this one:

-Paulie: 3 for 5 with 3 RBIs

- Alexi: 3-4 with 2 doubles and 2 RBIs

-AJ: 3 for 5 with 2 runs scored

This was a huge game for the Sox, because like I said they needed a strong game after dropping that heartbreaker on Friday. This game transitions nicely into Sunday's series finale. 

Sunday the Sox came out looking for yet another series victory and were hoping to improve to only 4 games under .500. Well with Edwin Jackson on the bump, they did just that. The big story in this one was the offense yet again (Edwin Jackson had an O.K game and the defense was pretty bad).

Alexi Ramirez was 4 for 5 with 5 RBIs and fell a triple short of the cycle (have a day). Juan Pierre must be reading my blog because he was 3 for 4 with 2 RBIs, getting on base like a leadoff man should. They knocked the ball around the yard and got on the board fast, posting 3 runs in the first inning off of 2 home runs (Ramirez, AJ). What was nice about this offensive effort was that it was relentless, they got up and instead of trying to cruise the rest of the way, they buried L.A, the continued to add to their lead, I love to see that! They have the type of offense that can burry a team and it was nice to finally see them play to their potential (almost). I say almost because despite all the runs, Adam Dunn is still struggling, imagine if we get him going how dangerous this lineup would be..... Another great sign is that Alex Rios is starting to hit, he is a big key to this offense, now that he's starting to hit, this teams production is going to drastically increase. Just as I said multiple times in previous posts, as the weather heats up, so will this teams offense....

Edwin Jackson was above average, he stuck around 5.2 innings, scattering 1 run on 5 hits. Threw a lot of pitches for only being in there for 5.2 innings. He is still having issues with getting ahead of the hitters, thus causing him to throw more pitches. But all in all he had a nice game.

The defense was bad, they committed 3 errors, not much to say about that, they really just need to improve. 

This team has finally started to show us what a solid contender it can be, winning 7 of our last 10 and 11 of our last 16. What is pretty awesome to think about is that this team is still not playing totally to its potential. The reason I say that is because there are still guys in our lineup not hitting and the defense is still making multiple errors a game. The more confidence that continues to build with these wins, the looser guys are going to be. The looser they are, the better they play. Once we get Rios and Dunn going, this offense is going to be unstoppable and I promise you the defense will come around. 

Now we go on the road for a 3 city road trip. This is a big trip folks, we need to continue to play as well as we have been playing and continue to build the confidence. Because we are slowly creeping back into this thing and it would be a real shame to see all of our work this month go for naught because of this trip. First, we have Texas (in Texas) if we continue to do what we've been doing, were going to be fine. Lets focus on one game at a time and continue to play to our potential. About 2 weeks ago this club was 11-22, now we're 22-26. Pretty impressive if you think about it.

Quick injury report: Carlos Quentin has been benched because of a sore knee, reports indicate that he is fine and he will be available to play tomorrow in Texas. Which is good because last I checked, he's leading the majors in extra base hits...

We're in Texas tomorrow, we're gonna run Danks out on the bump, first pitch will be over on Comcast Sportsnet at 7:05. Go Sox, big series coming up. 

If you like what I write feel free to share it with your friends on facebook, twitter, stumbleupon, ect. by clicking the icons below! Thank You!