The Red Sox End The 2009 Regular Season On A Winning Note...Boston 12 Cleveland 7

Despite another sub-par outing from Clay Buchholz, the Red Sox bats came alive and they clubbed the Cleveland Indian pitchers once again, winning by a score of 12-7. The big blow was a grand salami hit by Jed Lowrie, and from the left side, too. Oh, JD Drew had a multi-home run game, the fifteenth of his major league career and leftfielder Jason Bay completed an error-free season, joing Yaz, Ellsbury and Hawk Harrelson as the only Red Sox players to do that almost impossible accomplishment.

Now, on to Clay. He was off once again, but he HAS been named number three starter for the playoff series with the Halos. Jon Lester will open the postseason, opposed by John Lackey. He'll be followed by Beckett and Buchholz. If I were Tito, I would slot Daisuke into the number three slot, hands down. Clay said this after his outing...

“All my fastballs have been up in the zone, causing them to not have any movement,” Buchholz lamented. “That’s been it the last two times out. The fastball has been up. Everything has been up. I’ve been getting hit in situations that in the past I’ve been getting outs.”

Keep 'em down, Clay. Red Sox skipper Tito Francona further explained the last two mediocre outings by Clay...

“I thought he was up too much,” Francona said. “I thought he made it a little harder than he needs to. He shook off Victor Martinez too much and I think he was just thinking too much. After he came out of the game, he got a chance to talk to pitching coach John Farrell. When he made his pitches, he was fine."

I hope he'll be fine for his next start. He has to be. No matter what, it's on to postseason play, beginning Thursday on the left coast.

My congratulations go out to the 2009 Boston Red Sox, the American League Wild Card team. I'm proud of them. So are you, I'd wager.

You can click on this post's title for more Sox news and as always, BE WELL. I'll have a peview of the upcoming post season a little later in the week and don't forget, Minnesota and Detroit finished tied for first in the AL Central with identical records. They will play a one game playoff (remember 1978?...oy) on Tuesday. Exciting stuff.

That's a wrap for this Monday, October 5th, 2009. Postseason, here we come. YES!!!