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Dustin Pedroia beat the Giants silly tonight. 5-5, HR, 2B, 5 RBI's. AVG. up to .331 and OBP up to, I don't know, about .410? OPS of about .870.

Tomorrow's game is at 3:55 PM EST. Daisuke will be there with his new Mohawk and pitching against Matt Cain; I'll be at the game, too.

Sunday's game is at 2:05 PM EST and the pitching matchup is Wakefield vs. Matt Morris.

For the record, Matt Cain is not a good pitcher. I expect the Red Sox to put up double figures. Lots of walks and lots of homers, folks.

Yeah he sure does walk a lot guys. I hope your right BG.

And back to having no offense. I guess a win is a win. Great pitching from Dice, Okajima, and Paps.

Way to go Dice.

Bleeding Green wrote:For the record, Matt Cain is not a good pitcher. I expect the Red Sox to put up double figures. Lots of walks and lots of homers, folks.

Bleeding Green wrote:For the record, Matt Cain is not a good pitcher. I expect the Red Sox to put up double figures. Lots of walks and lots of homers, folks.

Matt Cain isn't a good pitcher? Your standards sure are high then. So what if he walks alot of guys? He strikes people out and gets groundballs. He hasn't shown that bad of a HR rate either.

Bleeding Green wrote:For the record, Matt Cain is not a good pitcher. I expect the Red Sox to put up double figures. Lots of walks and lots of homers, folks.

You must have been disappointed then. 1 BB and 1 HR. I have to admit that I thought there was a chance he would get shelled but he did well out there.

He's pitched better the last couple starts, he gets no **** run support at all. I don't like his walk rates either but at least he's improving on his GB%.

Sox going for the sweep
San Francisco (30-37) at Boston (43-24)
2:05 p.m. ET
TV: NESN Radio: WRKO 680 AM
By Ian Browne / MLB.com

Tim Wakefield adopted the knuckleball only after his brief Minor League career as an infielder didn't pan out.
By 1992, he had sufficiently developed the pitch to earn a call-up to the Majors. As a 26-year-old rookie, Wakefield joined Barry Bonds' Pirates and won eight games down the stretch. Bucs fans fondly remember Wakefield's performance in the 1992 NLCS, when he twirled complete-game wins in Games 3 and 6 against Tom Glavine and the Atlanta Braves.

In many ways, that was the last good thing to happen to Pittsburgh baseball. Doug Drabek started Game 7 and held the Braves scoreless for eight innings, but he was charged with three runs in Atlanta's decisive final at-bat. Within a calendar year, Wakefield and Bonds were gone -- to the Red Sox and Giants, respectively, who will face off at 2:05 p.m. ET on Sunday -- and the Pirates have languished below .500 in each year since.

"If we had [Wakefield] pitch the last game, we would have been in the World Series, as well as that guy pitched for us," Barry Bonds said this weekend at Fenway Park. "He was phenomenal."

Wakefield, who will start on Sunday, has faced Bonds on three occasions since the slugger signed with San Francisco before the 1993 season.

Twice in 1993, his last year in Pittsburgh, Wakefield faced the Giants. He lost both times, but held Bonds to zero hits in seven at-bats.


The Red Sox traveled to San Francisco for an Interleague series in 2004, where Wakefield started and held Bonds hitless again, although he did walk the Giants slugger twice.

"I don't do well off him because he's just too slow," Bonds said.

San Francisco will counter with Matt Morris, who appears to be well on his way to his third All-Star Game with a 2.56 ERA in 13 starts, fourth best in the National League.

Pitching matchup

BOS: RHP Tim Wakefield (6-7, 3.92 ERA)
For a month and a half, Wakefield's fortunes soared. For a month after that, they bottomed out. After two quality starts since a June 1 drubbing by the Yankees, Wakefield seems to have found a happy, consistent medium. His knuckler was crisp in a loss at Oakland and a win against the Rockies. He has a 5.68 career ERA against the Giants, incurring most of the damage as a National Leaguer in the early '90s.

SF: RHP Matt Morris (7-3, 2.56 ERA)
Morris steams into Sunday's game on a seven-game win streak. He has pitched consecutive complete games. Red Sox fans will remember the Giants' ace for throwing a dud in Game 2 of the 2004 World Series, when he allowed eight baserunners in 4 1/3 innings and got the loss as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Player to watch
J.D. Drew, who caught fire in the first game of the Giants series, has hammered Morris over his career, with six hits and two homers in just 18 at-bats.

Some of these guys have seen Morris before, so that's a good thing.

Lowell hitting .333 (6 for 18) 1 Homerun
Drew hitting .333 (6 for 18) 2 Homerun
Lugo hitting .240 (6 for 25)
Pena hitting .250 (4 for 16) 1 Homerun

Other than that not a whole lot there. Morris has only faced the Red Sox once in the regular season and has a CG with 4 hits and 1 run. But he has not pitched at Fenway, beside Game 2 of the World Series. He's pitching well, so the Sox will have their hands full.

Wakefield has faced some of their guys quite a bit, some with some serious success versus him.

Bonds 0 for 8
Ray Durham hitting .200 (7 for 35) 1 Homerun
Bengie Monlina hitting .412 (7 for 17) 1 Homerun
Omar Vizquel hitting .358 (19 for 53)
Randy Winn hitting .290 (9 for 31)

Wakefield is 1-3 for his career against the Giants. With a 5.68 ERA. Wake hasn't been very good at Fenway this year either 2-3 with a 5.12 ERA.

So this is a whole lot of stats that I'm sure will me nothing. Also the Sox have placed Donnelly on the DL and Manny Delcarmen is back up with the big club.

Eh, time will prove me right about Matt Cain.

The bats are alive this afternoon.

sunshinekids99 wrote:The bats are alive this afternoon.

Other than Lugo. He's so bad its almost funny now. Couldn't even get a sac bunt down with nobody out.

Yeah Lugo sure is in a horrible funk. At some point I think the Sox have to give more AB's to Cora.

WTF!

Why did Wakefield pitch to Bonds?

There was nobody on, and the Red Sox had a 5 run lead. Just walk the SOB.

Because they had a 5 run lead.

Yeah the last thing you want to do is put runners on base. I wish Bonds wouldn't have hit a homerun, but it was the right call.