Watching Papelbon on the mound is just electrifying, you gotta' love this kid. (AP Photo)
The Boston Red Sox grinded out a tough win last night against the Colorado Rockies, 2-1. Tim Wakefield was on the mound for the BoSox and he pitched a phenomenal game. Wakefield pitched eight strong innings only giving up 4 hits while walking one. Lately it's been a little scary to see Wake pitch because his stuff has just seemed flat...well, that and we have to watch Doug Mirabelli bat. Looks like Tim put his act together last night though, and hopefully it's something that he can build some momentum off of.
The Red Sox, who are 5-5 in their last ten games, certainly can't blame their pitching for going "only" .500 in the last ten. Our pitchers ERA over the last 10 games (this includes starters, bullpen, closers, you name it) is 3.33. A 3.33 ERA should win you a lot of ballgames, that's pretty incredible. However again, our hitting has been absolutely dormant. During the same stretch our offense has only averaged 4 runs per game, which...well, won't win you a lot of games. Of the last 10 games 6 of the games have been one run games, which is always a dicey thing to get into. The Sox were an even 3-3 in those games.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that if our pitching keeps it up, and their pace doesn't have to continue to be this torrid, and our bats start hitting again, you'll see the Red Sox stringing together a lot of wins in a row again. There's a reason why we have the best record in baseball, and pitching's a HUGE part of it, but you also have to swing those bats to really get some good chunks of wins.
SawxBlog Player of the Game
Tim Wakefield - P
8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 4 K
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