TOR 8, BOS 7: Red Sox Clinch Playoffs With Loss to Blue Jays

Adam Lind and the Blue Jays came out firing, beating Clay Buchholz and the Red Sox, 8-7, on Tuesday. However, the Red Sox will cry themselves all the way into the post season, as the Angels worked their magic on the Texas Rangers, sealing a wildcard playoff berth for the Bo Sox.

After a dominant start to the month, Clay Buchholz recorded his second less than stellar start, going eight hits and seven earned runs over five innings. Toronto took advantage of his missteps, launching five home runs off the young righty, with six bombs overall for the evening.

BOS 11, BAL 5: Less than Lester, Still Good Enough

Even an uninspiring performance by Jon Lester was enough to get the job done against an Orioles team that has all but thrown in the orange towel, as Boston beat Baltimore, 11-5, on Saturday.

It was the Red Sox bats that locked up the 12th consecutive series win against the Orioles, behind a shaky outing six inning stretch where Lester gave up ten hits. But as he continued to miss his spots (only 62 strikes over 102 pitches), the offense was busy at work against an already depleted Orioles pitching staff.

20/20 Vision

A few years back, I was introduced to a simple site on the Internet that gave me a different and useful lens on the baseball season. Doug's Stats (www.dougstats.com) looks much like it did the day I stumbled on it in 2003. It hasn't gotten a Web 2.0 facelift, there are no fancy charts or running commentary. In fact, most of the stats can be gotten from any sports site with a "stats" tab in their MLB section. But there was one link on the front door of Doug's home on the Internet that grabbed my attention.

J.D. Drew a Top 5 right fielder

J.D. Drew hit his 19th home run of the season, tying his total from last year. His next home run will rank as only the fourth time in 11 full seasons that he's reached that plateau.

Outside of a .217/.316/.361 line in June, Drew has been turning in a great year. It is easy to get on Drew when his batting average seems to be hovering in the .230s and he's always dinged up. But let's take a second here, step back, and see how valuable Drew has been to the Sox.

Throwing out 2007 and his grand slam to ice the ALCS in Game Six, Drew has a .272/.395/.505 line, not including last night's game. To have a line like that out of your right fielder is immensely valuable.

To compare, I ran a comparison of batters with at least 800 plate appearances over the last two years from the beginning of 2008 to August 31, 2009.

Flip the page to see what I found.

Tweets on the Red Sox’s 25-man roster

In a homage to Twitter, the new social media application that is changing how news is delivered (in the same vein how blogs changed everything) I bring to you a summary of each Red Sox player on the 25-man roster in 140 characters or less (the maximum number of characters you can enter on Twitter).

Have Twitter? Follow me. Tim's on too. Oh, and Fire Brand has one as well. You'll notice that had you followed Fire Brand, you would have gotten all these tweets last night.

Johnny Damon or JD Drew?

Johnny Damon has played much better, on the wrong side of 30, then most would have expected. In fact, he has been a better player the past two seasons, than he was the previous two. But how could anyone have foreseen that? How could anyone have known that he would age so well?

The Red Sox made a choice to let Damon walk, they let him accept more money. And that is the other part of this equation; the Yankees offered him more money and an extra year if I recall. So naturally, Damon went elsewhere.

But comparing him straight up to Drew isn't necessarily fair. Coco Crisp was Damon's successor, not Drew. Crisp was brought in, and the results were mixed. Sure, he couldn't hit much at all. But Crisp was arguably the most valuable defender in all of baseball during a 2007 World Series run that resulted in a bunch of rings. Crisp was then moved to give the role to Ellsbury of course. So let us just say that it could be much worse in center field. Ellsbury is still learning the game, and should be a solid all-around player, eventually.

BOS 5, OAK 4: Drew, Papi blasts lead Sox

During the game yesterday, Oakland Athletics shortstop Orlanda Cabrera was shown on camera asking a teammate "how can you hit that." Carbera was referencing Tim Wakefield's knuckleball that was dancing all around the plate last night.

Bailey likely to hit disabled list

Yesterday, first baseman Jeff Bailey suffered a high-ankle strain trying to make a play on Brad Penny's acrobatic flip to first base Saturday. He's likely to hit the disabled list, a loss given that the Sox are about to face two left-handed pitchers.

How can the Red Sox replace Bailey against left-handed starters?

BOS 4, BAL 0: Reverse, reverse

One day after being dominated by Tommy Hanson, Jon Lester and the Boston Red Sox turned the table on the Baltimore Orioles.

BOS 4, NYY 3: 8-0

Still want to trade Brad Penny?