Please Look After Your Health

One of the most frustrating losses of the year. Losing 2-1 to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Red Sox beat themselves in dropping the final game of the three games series at Tropicana Field Wednesday night. The Sox left 14 men on base, had men on base every inning and left men on base every inning. While Dice-K Matsuzaka had another good outing (final line: 6 innings, 2 hits, 2 earned runs, 4 walks and 8 strikeouts), the big blow against him being a two run jack by B.J. Upton in the bottom of the 6th, the Red Sox offense did not do anything to help the cause. Although they won the series, the Sox will await the outcome of the Yankees game against the Angels on the west coast Wednesday night to find out if they go into their four set against the Chicago White Sox 5 or 6 games up in the AL East.

The Red Sox had a big scare in the top of the 3rd when Dustin Pedroia was hit on the left elbow by a tailing fastball thrown by D-Rays hurler Edwin Jackson. Watching the game on Tampa’s FSN, which is THE channel to watch if one is interested in fishing promos—they are so into fishing in Tampa they even interview people in the stands about upcoming fishing events during the game—you could hear the pitch crush into Pedroia's elbow with a loud crack. Pedroia stayed in the game long enough to score the Red Sox lone run but was obviously in pain on the base paths. He was replaced in the bottom of the 3rd by Alex Cora. Pedroia was taken for precautionary x-rays—which proved negative. He returned to the Red Sox bench in uniform later in the game. While he is day to day, an injury that sends Pedroia to the DL for any length of time would be potentially devastating to the Red Sox. He leads the team in batting average and has proven himself as a consistent hitter in the leadoff spot. (In essence of full disclosure, Pedroia going to the DL would also be potentially devastating to me as I own Pedroia in a mixed-league head to head fairly deep Fantasy Baseball League).

At the risk of jinxing this team, the Red Sox have been very lucky during the 2007 campaign in avoiding the injuries that have plagued other teams this year throughout both the American and National League and which also plagued the Red Sox in 2006. Although David Ortiz has been hampered throughout the year with various ailments (knee and shoulder especially), and most likely will require surgery in the off-season, Curt Schilling spent 7 weeks on the DL and Josh Beckett missed two starts because of an occlusion on a finger on his pitching hand. Additionally, Mike Timlin started the season on the DL and Brendon Donnelly went onto the DL in June and has had season ending reconstructive surgery. Only this past weekend, Dave Mirabelli was placed on the 15 day DL with a strained calf. That said, the Red Sox have been spared having a starting position player spend time on the DL. As Red Sox Nation will remember, when Schilling sat he was replaced in the rotation by Kason Gabbard who was 3-0 with Schills on the shelf. Julian Tavarez and Time Wakefield also stepped up nicely in a re-jigging of the rotation to fill Beckett's starts when he was healing. All in all, after 127 games, the Sox have been relatively healthy this year.

Curt Schilling probably said it best in an interview early on in the season when he stated that the team whose starting rotation on opening day pitched the most innings during the season would be the team who would go the farthest. He should have probably also said that the team whose starting position players spend the least amount of time on the DL during the course of the season would also be a the team that is favored to win it all.