A Little Of This, A Little Of That

The second half of the 2007 baseball season starts tonight as the Boston Red Sox face off against the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park. Lined up to pitch are the always tough Roy Halladay versus veteren knuckleballer Timmy Wakefield. The edge goes to the Blue Jays for this first of four because of that matchup. The Sox cannot afford to play .500 ball any more. Of the 77 games remaining for the Yankees, 56 of them, including the next 27, will be against teams with more losses than they have. I'll name them, and thank you Hartford Courant for this interesting stat. They are Toronto, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Kansas City and the White Sox. As the Courant said, the Yankees COULD go 50 something and 30 something. That thought scares me, because the Sox need another hitter, they need a knee-healthy Big Papi, and they need to get Schill back into the rotation, healthy and sound. If not, a trade for a hitter and a pitcher would be the only smart move. We have plenty of young players who we can part with, albeit reluctantly, and Wily Mo Pena is sure to go. PLEASE!!! I'll drive him myself! He'd be a great DH for some other club. ANY other club.

Oh, by the way...read this, from the NBX Sports Blog....

"56 of Boston’s remaining 75 games are against teams that were below .500 at the break."

Peter here, and I'd call that ease of schedule between the Yankees and our Sox a tie in terms of difficulty. Now we just have to perform! I hope you will all enjoy the second half of baseball 2007, when everything will be decided, and happiness or tears will prevail in Red Sox Nation. Let's hope it's the former of the two.

Click on the title for an article on Big Papi and his current status, written by the Herald's Steve Buckley. Have a great Thursday, and let's hope the Sox can reel off 8 out of 10 wins to begin the second half. A season we will ALL remember, for better or for worse. Here is the entire four game pitching schedule.......

Roy Halladay (10-3, 4.46) vs. Tim Wakefield (9-8, 4.39) tonight
Shaun Marcum (4-3, 3.62) vs. Julian Tavarez (5-7, 4.97) Friday
Dustin McGowan (5-4, 4.65) vs. Matsuzaka (10-6, 3.84) Saturday
Jesse Litsch (1-3, 4.74) vs. Beckett (12-2, 3.44) Sunday.

Peter here, and taking three of those four would be just fine with me. Take care everyone, and thanks for reading. GO SOX.