Call me a pessimist if you must, but I just don't think the weekend series win over the Indians by the Red Sox means all that much. Sure Cleveland is leading the AL Central at the moment, but there is no reason to think they'll be in that position at the end of this month. So taking 3 out of the 4 games from the Indians shouldn't be seen as that big of an accomplishment.
Did the Sox play better against Cleveland than they have in the past few weeks? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean they've turned the season around. The Indians are not a strong team, although they are leading their division, they only have 18 wins. They are the only division leading team in all of baseball that doesn't have at least 20 wins. Right now, it's pretty safe to say that division is the worst in baseball, so I'm not getting my hopes up just yet.
The Sox did manage to get back to their high-scoring ways, combining for a total of 26 runs in the 4 games, and the pitching staff was much better giving up a total of 10 runs. So while on paper this may look like a sign of things turning around in Boston, I'm just not convinced yet.
Thursday's game saw Josh Beckett get absolutely shelled and subsequently booed off the mound, and while Clay Buccholz did look better in his outing on Friday, he didn't strike out a single batter in his 6 and 1/3 innings pitched. He once again benefited from the offense scoring a lot of runs for him. Felix Doubront continued to improve with his performance on Saturday, but his ERA is still nearly 4.50. He did only give up 1 run on 3 hits while striking out 5, so I won't complain too much about him.
All of this brings me to Daniel Bard. He picked up the win on Sunday and only gave up 1 run, but he still doesn't look like he has the confidence to be a starting pitcher. In his 6 innings he threw 97 pitches, gave up 6 hits, walked 4, and struck out 2. These just aren't the numbers anyone expected to see out of Bard. He even admitted that Sunday's start was step back for him. This sets up Bard's return to the bullpen when Daisuke Matsuzaka returns this summer. While I don't think anyone was expecting Bard to be an ace starting pitcher this year, the expectations were certainly greater than a 3-4 record with a 4.30 ERA. Someone in the rotation is going to get bumped when Dice-K is healthy, and right now it sure looks like the axe is going to fall on Bard.
All in all, I'm very happy the Sox took 3 out of 4 games against a weak team like the Indians, and I'm even happier the Mariners are in Boston for a quick 2 game series and Felix Hernandez won't be pitching. The Red Sox head down to Tampa for 2 against the Rays and then to Philly for their first interleague matchup of the season. Facing both of those teams after winning 5 of their last 6 games would be a huge confidence boost for them. I'm just saying I'm not ready to call this a turning point yet. It does give me hope that things are headed in the right direction, but we'll see how they fair this week.
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