Last night, the Red Sox beat the White Sox—again—by scoring early and often, just as Alejandro said they could. Even though, as expected, the debuting Michael Bowden left immediately after getting through the fifth, the Red Sox bullpen miraculously gave up no runs! So far, Sarah is 0-for-2.

We’ll see if the White Sox fare better today, as Gavin Floyd takes on Tim Wakefield. I’ll be in the Fens!

Boston's Achilles heel

It’s Sox versus Sox this weekend, as the Chicago White Sox come to Fenway for a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox. The two Sox are separated by only one game in the loss column, with the Boston team 4.5 games behind the first-place Rays (and playing them six times in September) in the AL East and the Chicago version just 1.5 games ahead of the Twins (who they play three more times) in the AL Central. The wild card? Still up for grabs.

Short version: this is a big series, folks.

So how can the Chicago nine beat my Boston squad? The answer is simple: get to the bullpen.

Yesterday, after Jon Lester spun yet another quality start, blanking the Yankees for six-and-two-thirds innings, Okajima came in with a runner on second. Okajima has not been good with inherited runners this year. He promptly surrendered a game-tying, pinch-hit home run to Jason Giambi, and the Red Sox lost in the bottom of the ninth.

This scenario is, by now, all too familiar to Red Sox fans. And this series against Chicago should present plenty of opportunities for the same.

Each "tock" brings you one second closer to Javier Lopez

Tonight, Daisuke Matsuzaka takes the hill for Boston. While Dice-K has been very good this year (2.98 ERA, 15-2 record), he averages about 5 and two-thirds innings per start and has a 1.50 K/BB. The Sox will be lucky if he gets through the sixth. Tomorrow, the likely starter is minor leaguer David Pauley, in place of the injured Josh Beckett. Pauley isn’t likely to make it past five frames. Sunday, the Sox have Tim Wakefield going, which could go either way. Wake can still cruise through lineups when his knuckler is fluttering, but at 42, he’s a little old to be left out there to labor.

So in at least two of the three contests, all the White Sox will have to do is play the waiting game.

Chicago isn’t particularly renowned for their patience (they’re sort of middle-of-the-pack when it comes to walks), but they’ll be facing Sir Walksalot in the person of Matsuzaka, a Triple-A pitcher in Pauley, and a knuckleballer in Wakefield. If they can lay off any pitch that’s even remotely borderline, they’ll get their fair share of free passes, and they’ll drive up the starters’ pitch counts.

And when the relievers come in, the White Sox won’t have to wait any longer–they can swing for the fences.

See Alejandro’s assessment of Chicago’s key weakness here.

This week’s Metro column, a paean to Tim Wakefield, knuckleballer, 16-game winner, and what’s more, a decent human being. (Curse of the Metro? Shortly after publication, Wake missed a start with a sore back.) And, after the jump, the column that never was: I was all set to mope about the Yankees for the next two weeks, until they come to Fenway for (fingers crossed) a vengeful drubbing. But yesterday’s rookie no-no changed all that, and this column will now only see the light of day here on UmpBump.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night, the Red Sox showed the Mariners what they were made of, scoring 14 runs off of Jeff Weaver and the M’s pen and playing solid defense behind emerging star Josh Beckett.

On Wednesday night, the M’s struck back. SP Felix Hernandez one-hit the Sox and the Mariners won 3-0.Tonight, in a much less publicized match-up, the teams will meet once more. This time, it’s Tim Wakefield (0-1) on the mound for Boston and Jared Washburn (0-0) for Seattle.

Boston fans can look at tonight’s match up in one of two ways: either they’ll be negative nellies and note that Seattle has absolutely owned Wakefield over his career, or they’ll take the glass-is-half-full approach and say, “Hey, our guy is due!”

From Yahoo.com:

Wakefield is 3-8 with a 4.37 ERA in 23 career appearances, including 13 starts, against the Mariners, but is 0-5 in his last 17 outings against them, losing in each of his last four. His last victory against Seattle came on July 29, 1997, when he tossed a five-hitter in a 4-0 win at Fenway.

That’s right Red Sox faithful. You’re starting pitcher, who has made at least 30 appearances in all but one season dating back to 1993, hasn’t beaten the Mariners in over a decade. The last time Wakefield beat the M’s, I was still in high school, Roger Maris was still the all-time home run champ, and there were still only three Star Wars movies.

So, yeah, Wakefield is totally due.