Buchholz Good But Red Sox Bats Put Up Goose Eggs...Ells Has Fractured Ribs...Daisuke In, Wakes Out

The Boston Red Sox were defeated by the Texas Rangers Thursday night. The score was 3-0 and the only person who impressed me was Sox starter Clay Buchholz. For 6 innings he had a shutout but things unraveled a bit with a three run seventh. If the Red Sox had "normal" hitting prowess, they very well could have won the game. But there was good news for Buchholz nevertheless. He will stay in the starting rotation and Wakefield will step aside to make room for Daisuke Matsuzaka, barring any last weekend setbacks. It'll be official by Monday.

Boston ridiculously waited UNTIL YESTERDAY to give hurting Jacoby Ellsbury a CT scan. Why did they wait when the collision happened on April 11th? Simple...I HAVE NO IDEA!!! The CT scan revealed four fractured ribs. Luckily, the ribs are not misplaced and eventually will heal, eliminating the pain. It might be a week (highly doubtful), it might be a month (much more likely). Terry Francona, Red Sox manager, had this to say yesterday...

"The medical people assured us this is the protocol - you treat the symptoms. But once he wasn't able to play then we needed to go back and do the CT scan. Nothing is displaced. We had four people read the X-rays. When an X-ray comes back negative it means you treat the symptoms. It threw us all for a loop a little bit.

Boy, it should have! What Tito means is that the XRAYS taken in Kansas City the day of the injury failed to show anything. A CT scan was necessary back then and it was never done but the treatment for a non-misplaced fractured rib, even four of 'em, is exactly what Ells has been doing. Just don't expect him back in three or five days. But he WILL be back. I hope Mike Cameron will be, too. I worry about him more than I do Jacoby. In fact, I hope this injury plague moves to another city (left coast and NYC?).

So it'll be Matsuzaka and Buchholz at the back of the rotation and that's good. I love Timmy but the club had to pick their five best. I think they did. Click on this post's title for more on the Sox and as always, BE WELL.