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There is still no diagnosis for Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was pulled early from his last start for shoulder fatigue. At best, this could be just dead arm or some sort of muscle soreness; at worst, his rotator or labrum could be frayed or damaged. He has been sent back to Boston, and will undergo an MRI tomorrow that should help assess the situation.
Justin Masterson’s pitching schedule at Pawtucket was altered yesterday, indicating that he may be spot starting for the Red Sox on Tuesday, which would have been Matsuzaka’s next scheduled start.
Julian Tavarez has joined the Milwaukee Brewers. For now, he will pitch out of their bullpen, though he will likely provide rotational insurance against injury.
Coco Crisp continues to deal with his part-time situation, to his credit. A trade won’t occur until a team steps up and is willing to pay a steeper price for Crisp.
In case you haven’t heard yet, five Red Sox are leading the All-Star balloting in the AL. Jason Varitek, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are all on track to start on July 15. That would be interesting to see so many position players as starters in the game at Yankee Stadium, now wouldn’t it?
Five All-Star starters is a lot. I guess in this way, we really are becoming the new Yankees. Just remember your roots, okay guys?
The Red Sox have signed 16-year old Boss Moanaroa of Australia to a minor league contract. He’s a big left-handed hitter who’s shown some prodigious power. By all accounts, he’s as raw as can be defensively, but he is athletic. Moanaroa almost abandoned baseball for BMX racing a couple of years ago, but he’s glad he stuck with it now. I don’t think he becomes a top prospect right away; a lot can happen in 6 years.
One thing that has been weighing on Jon Lester’s mind these past starts: His father has been diagnosed with a treatable form of lymphoma, two years after Lester had to brave chemotherapy to fight his own non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This cancer is not aggressive in its current stage, and will not require immediate treatment, like the younger Lester. But that makes the no-hitter last week that much more poignant to Lester and his family. Best wishes to the Lester family.
In the tragic and strange category, former Red Sox pitcher Jeremi Gonzalez was killed by a lightning strike in his native Venezuela. He was at the beach when he was struck and died. He wasn’t a very good Major League pitcher, but this is very sad.
Oakland came into this series struggling of late, and Boston came in on a six-game win streak. But it didn’t matter, as the A’s silenced the Boston bats and got enough offense to win all three games. The Sox are really feast or famine this year; in addition to the extreme home/road splits, they have had winning streaks of 4, 5, 6 and 7 games already. They have lost three in a row twice, and had 4 and 5 game losing streaks as well in this still young season. They have been a part of 9 series sweeps in 2008, winning 5 of them and losing 4. Let’s hope the losing doesn’t continue for long this time.
If you haven’t noticed, Johan Santana hasn’t exactly gone over and decimated the National League this season. Here’s a nice article by Chadd Finn that discusses what might be going on here.
In the meantime, the names that were being bandied about as trade bait have played key roles on this year’s Sox.
