How To Write A Baseball Blog (While In The Hospital Once A Month)

It's easy! No, I kid you. It isn't. But I'm back, for better or worse, and while I've been gone the Boston Red Sox continued their stranglehold on first place in the AL East, MLB's foremost division. Yesterday, David Ortiz (who else), drove in Pedey with the winning run. The Red Sox managed only six hits but made them count. Here's how the go-ahead run crossed the plate in the seventh inning. It was 3-3 when Ortiz came to the plate with the bases loaded and one out to face Phil Dumatrait, a lefthanded reliever who once upon a time was a first-round draft pick of the Sox. Papi hit something low, just about in the dirt in front of the plate. The baseball rolled only halfway up the line. Dumatrait tried to pick up the ball with his bare hand but instead stumbled and fell to his knees.Pedey came in to score and Papi was easily safe at first. Another RBI for the big man. Ortiz was not happy (to say the least) but he did his job and his team (and ours) won their fourth in a row. The Yankees are 3 1/2 games back. Here's Big Papi...

“You hit a ball to the pitcher like that, he’s got to chase and you’ve got to run and you’ve got a guy coming in. There’s a lot of things going on at the same time.’’

Eric Bedard, cursed by Tim McClelland's tiny (about the size of a record groove) strike zone, walked four and threw a ton of pitches. If I had been able to watch the game, I would have been cursing him out big time. If there's something I absolutely cannot stand in the game of baseball, it's a blown strike call. That high first inning pitch count limited Bedard, in his second Sox start, to five innings. He surely would have gone six if not seven but for the oaf behind the plate. The Boston Red Sox bullpen, in the form of Albers (1 run), Marales, Bard and Papelbon, all with no runs, saved the day. As the Fenway Faithful filed out of the venerable Fenway Park, there were smiles to be seen and contented murmurs to be heard.

Today, Wednesday, another game with the slumping Twins is coming up. Here's all you need to know (I LOVE the pitching match ups)...

Wed. 10 at Min 8:10 PM ET** NESN/FxNo** J. Lester (11-5) vs. N. Blackburn (7-9) GO JON. GO SOX!

There's no place like home. There's NO place like home. Click on this post's title and see and read all about last night's win. Thanks for waiting me out and thankfully, I'm feeling great. Thank God.Thank him for me when you look up at that beautiful blue sky from your Fenway seats.