Swept Away

Though Jim Croce's Leroy Brown said that the South Side of Chicago was Chicago's baddest part of town, the Red Sox did all of the tail wuppin' on Friday as the Sox pulled out the brooms and swept the Chisox in their day-night doubleheader . The Red Stockings beat the White Stockings 11-3 and 10-1 and, according to the Boston Globe's Amalie Benjamin, this was the first time since a double header against Kansas City in 1957 that the Sox scored 10 runs in both games of a two-set.

It was the recently emerging offense that did the damage-along with a strong outing from Curt Schilling in game 2-allowing the Red Sox to move to a year high 27 games over .500 and increase their lead over the Yankees to 6 1/2 games as the Evil Empire lost to Detroit in dramatic fashion (a three run walk-off home run by Detroit's Carlos Guillen in the bottom of the 11th).

There was lots of good news from Chicago.

Kevin Youkilis, who had been batting only .226 since the All-Star break (compared to .328 before the break) and has a post-break OPS of .697 compared to .920 prior to the break, went a combined 4 for 7 with one home run, a double and 4 RBI's in the two games.

David Ortiz went 4-5 in the nightcap, belting his 22nd and 23rd home runs of the year and scored 3 runs to go with his 3 RBI's.

Mike Lowell continued to underline the reasons why he is the Red Sox MVP for 2007 by going 2-4 with a walk and getting two more RBI's. He leads the team with 90.

The Captain, Jason Varitek, who has struggled since the All-Star break (batting only .231), went 2 for 3 in the first game with a two run homer and 4 RBI's.

In addition to Schilling's 3 hit, 1 run performance over 6 innings in the second game, Josh Beckett won his league leading 16th game of the season going 5 2/3 innings in game 1.

Random Thoughts:

Peter Gammons had some interesting things to say in his online chat on Thursday. Gammons noted that although the Sox had the best record in baseball, they were not getting the offensive production that they expected from the 3rd, 4th and 5th spots in their batting order. The Commissioner pointed out that Manny and J.D. Drew were having the worst years of their careers. Manny's OPS of .874 was his career low and he will struggle to hit 30 home runs. J.D. Drew, with a .748 OPS and 6 home runs, is also far off his norm.

Hopefully, the offensive display in Chicago on Friday will be the spark that this team will need down the stretch and Manny, Papi and J.D. Drew will return to form in September.