POLL: Best playoff SP duo?

Matsuzaka to make return Tuesday, Byrd tucks wings in

Last night, Amalie Benjamin tweeted that Daisuke Matsuzaka was going to make his return to the Sox rotation on Tuesday. This means that Paul Byrd is suddenly out of a rotation spot, assuming Tim Wakefield makes his scheduled start next weekend in Baltimore. Check out how the weekend stacks up and when Byrd will probably start.

9/11: Rays here to play spoiler

GAME NOTES: Jon Lester is in the midst of a rain delay against James Shields. The Rays are down and out, essentially, but you can bet they'd love to play spoiler against the Sox.

Wholesale Keychain TRIVIA: 30 HR, 100 RBI LF

Jason Bay now has 30 home runs and 100 RBI in a season for the Red Sox as the left-fielder. Name the four other Boston left-fielders to reach this milestone.

Wake up, Sox fans! The Red Sox are in a race!

Over the last couple of months, I have noticed that Red Sox fans seem to be losing attention to the team. Tickets are harder to sell off if you can't make a game. Comments on Red Sox blogs have dropped.

We are in mid-September, atop the wild card lead by only two games, and it seems as if Red Sox Nation is in a collective funk -- myself included.

What's going on?

New Shortstop Prospect Jose Iglesias

With the recent signing of shortstop prospect Jose Iglesias, the Sox now have four shortstops among their top 20 prospects.

Soxprospects.com rates the 19 year-old Cuban defector as the 14th best prospect in the organization and second-best prospect behind #12 Yamaico Navarro, third-best if you include Casey Kelly.

The 5-11, 175 pound infielder rates very well with the glove, with at least one scout grading it an 80 on the 20-80 scouting scale, according to Kiley McDaniel of Baseball Prospectus. His arm rates as a plus, as does his range, though his speed is of debate to some scouts.

What to Do With Daisuke, The Transformation of Lester

With Daisuke finalizing his rehab stint for Class-A Salem, a September 15th return seems within reach. But what does Dice have to offer for the big club?

Through five months of the 2009 season, Jon Lester has morphed himself from above average starter into one of the best starters in the American League. What is at the root of this transformation?

What to Do With Daisuke?

As the Boston Red Sox get set for their weekend series against Tampa Bay, embattled starter Daisuke Matsuzaka gets prepared for a return to the Red Sox rotation.

Under any normal circumstances, the answer would be simple: bench him.

But these are not normal circumstances.

The dream of sending Daisuke to the pine, alive and kickin' since his horrifying yet successful 2008, is D.O.A. due to the size of his contract. Players who earn as much as Dice does will always get their playing time. That's just the way it is. The team has invested so much in him that they have to give him every opportunity to succeed.

9/9: The Berken Byrd

How's that for a play on words? Except for the whole birds being able to bark thing, of course. Byrd threw a gem against Toronto and followed it up with a stinker against Chicago. What's he got in store for Baltimore? On the other side, Berken has a 6.07 ERA an 4-11 record. These are the types of games we should win. Will we?

Can David Ortiz make it to 30 home runs and 2010?

Back when David Ortiz was mired in his homerless streak, not bopping his first home run until May 20 and his second until June 6, I made a bet with a friend that Ortiz would end up with 30 home runs.

Ortiz had a torrid June and kept consistently banging out the home runs, so it was looking more and more like I would win the bet. However, Big Papi has followed up a .222/.330/.495 August with a clunker in September: .160/.250/.280 through September 9.

In my mind, the more pressing issue here is 2010. Do we hand Ortiz the DH job automatically and pray he comes through with it? The way I see it, Ortiz is virtually untradeable and it's impossible to relegate him to a bench spot.

Fireside Chats #59: Where we write off the Rays, the hopes of the division, and Jonathan Papelbon’s long term future in Boston

The Red Sox got the two out of three wins in Tampa that we talked about last episode, and proceeded to meet doom in Chicago at the hands of "the Revenge of Kotsay". Net/net, the Rangers are still in the wild card hunt and aren't going anywhere. Paul and I break down the Red Sox castoffs and in season additions and give Theo and team a positive in season grade with this team built for the post-season (should they get there). All that just primes us for the big finish, where Paul nearly convinces me that trading Jonathan Papelbon in the offseason is the right thing for the franchise in a "Seymour-esque" way.

All that and more on Episode #59 of Fireside Chats on MVN!