Boston's John Lackey Continues Red Sox Streak. Red Sox 7 LAA 0

For nine consecutive games, including yesterday's, Boston Red Sox starting pitchers have gone at least five innings and allowed FEWER than three runs. Their combined ERA over that stretch? 0.88. And the beat goes on. Sunday, John Lackey was finally all business, going eight scoreless innings and allowing only six hits and one walk. He was pitching against his former team, the LA Angels, who couldn't even begin to touch his offerings. Speak of the devil. Here he is...

“They came out swinging. Those guys know me and know I throw strikes. They were looking to get some hits early. I got fortunate, a couple of balls were hit hard to the outfield for some outs. Then I got into a rhythm and started getting some grounders and things started flowing a little bit. Sure, there’s definitely a sense of not wanting to be the guy to stop the streak. It’s a pretty good run, but it’s not unexpected. We’ve got some guys here with some pretty good track records.”

Red Sox manager Tito Francona, who is enjoying this nine game interlude of peace, justic and the American way, was short but sweetly succinct...

“I thought he was tremendous."

Hey Tito, I did too. And with the two game resurgance of Daisuke Matsuzaka, this quintet of Boston Red Sox starters, if they keep it up, may end up on the cover of SI magazine. There's a day off today as the team travels east to Baltimore for a three game set starting Tuesday. After that, it's home cooking. I'll have the pitching match-ups and game times in tomorrow morning's post. The Sox are still in third place, 3.5 out but five games behind the Yankees in the loss column. Quietly, the pin-stripers have kept winning but I like this Red Sox team. Their starting pitching is obviously top notch, as is the bullpen, they have a great defense to back those pitchers and the bats are starting to heat up, as well they should. With one day less than a week left in this month of April, it's gone from unbelievably bad to superb. I'll take superb anytime. Hands down.

I want to thank you for popping in and I hope you've been enjoying this stellar baseball from the team we love to love. Click on this post's title for more on everything Sox and as always and forever, BE WELL. KEEP IT GOING, SOX!