Wrapping up their longest road trip of the season, the Red Sox also wrapped up a three game sweep of the AL Central leading Detroit Tigers with a 6-3 win yesterday afternoon. The win gives the Sox a 6-4 record on the 10 game, 3 city trip.

Amalie Benjamin has Tim Wakefield overcoming an early bump to finish strong and post his 7th win of the season. Michael Silverman says that the turnaround in starting pitching was the key to turning around this trip, which started at 2-4. Daniel Barbarisi reports on a wild afternoon in Detroit.

Ron Borges has David Ortiz planning on seeing an eye doctor to see if there are any issues there. Dan Shaughnessy feels bad for good-guy Dontrelle Willis. Mike Fine has the Sox wishing to get their shortstop situation sorted out.Borges looks at how Tim Wakefield just does his thing out there. Barbarisi notes that Wakefield is the anchor of a suddenly rejuvenated rotation these days. Alex Speier says that Wakefield has had dominating stuff this season.

Brian MacPherson has the Red Sox wanting Jacoby Ellsbury to be aggressive, yet picky at the plate. Nick Cafardo talks to Andruw Jones, who has a good idea of what David Ortiz is experiencing right now. Sarah Green says that older pitchers don’t always age gracefully. Barbarisi has Gerald Laird understanding why Josh Beckett hit him the other night.

If J.D. Drew hits his 200th home run, and no one realizes it, did it really happen?

Adam Kilgore has a minor league notebook, and leads off with a look at Portland outfielder Aaron Bates. Marc Lanza has Javier Lopez, currently at Pawtucket, hoping to make it back to the Red Sox. Speier reports that the Red Sox 2007 top pick Nick Hagadone will make his 2009 single-A debut Saturday after having Tommy John surgery last June.

Benjamin’s notebook has more on Ortiz’s plans to get his eyes checked. Silverman’s notebook has Kevin Youkilis having to leave the game with a tight calf.

Patriots

The Patriots reached into their past yesterday, signing three-time Super Bowl champion Patrick Pass. He seems a longshot at best to make the roster, but perhaps the team signed him to give him a chance to get back on the radar and maybe hook on somewhere else in training camp. Or maybe the team decided they’d like to work on some things with a fullback in camp.

Mark Farinella notes that perhaps Pass is here because the Patriots don’t current have a fullback in the pure sense of the position. Christopher L. Gasper also notes Pass’ ability to play fullback. GateHouse News notes that Pass originally made the Patriots as a long shot, so maybe he can do it again. Chris Price looks at the Pass signing and the waiving of four players yesterday.

Christopher Price notes that Randy Moss has almost been a forgotten man this offseason. Karen Guregian has linebacker Paris Lenon feeling reborn and rejuvenated coming from the 0-16 Lions to the Patriots.

Jim Donaldson says that while Rodney Harrison was a great player, he wasn’t as great as Patriots fans think he was, and he is certainly not a Hall of Famer. Ron Chimelis says that Harrison put his personal stamp on the Patriots.

Misc

Bill Doyle has Jeff Van Gundy having no issues with rooting for his brother Stan in the NBA finals, even though Jeff is an objective analyst for ABC. Chad Finn has Charles Barkley once again getting himself in hot water with his mouth. Jessica Heslam reports on an hour-long outage for NESN at the start of yesterday’s Red Sox game.

Steve Conroy looks at the quarterback blues taking over Boston College. Mark Blaudschun has BC football busy at what is supposed to be a slow time.

Marc J. Spears has the Lakers destroying the Magic in game one of the NBA finals. Fluto Shinzawa has the Penguins knotting the Stanley Cup Finals at 2-2 with their win last night.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

10 thoughts on “Sox Finish Off Trip With Sweep of Tigers”

  1. The concept of anyone even tangentally involved with ESPN rooting for anyone outside of KobeJesus and Team Eurotrash is hilarious.

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  2. I think I hate the Lakers more than the Yankees.

    Really, at least the Yankees don’t have the MLB front offices openly rooting for them and assigning friendly umpires to their post-season games whenver they need a big win.

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    1. Exactly. I dislike the Lakers and the Canadiens more than the Yankees because at least if the umpire sucks, he generally sucks for both teams. The Habs have caused more heartbreak for the B’s than the Fakers ever will for the C’s (there are about a dozen bigger moments in the rivalry than Magic’s skyhook at the Garden, most of them involving Russell making someone look stupid) , but I don’t see the NHL actively rooting for Montreal.

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      1. Not sure if this is true or not, because I really don’t remember and I’m too lazy to look it up, but Bill Simmons once wrote that the NBA actually changed the free agency rules just prior to Shaq hitting the final year of his Orlando contract. Everyone knew that he wanted to go to L.A., but the Lakers had cap issues in 1995 and may not have been able to pull off the signing. Then, according to Simmons, the NBA suddenly changed some kind of rule that ostensibly made it much easier for Jerry West to move a few salaries out of town to make room for Shaq–something like that. It could be just Simmons trying to tweak Lakers fans, who can’t stand him. But I’d LOVE it if this were true, because it would prove my point about Stern’s NBA rigging the process for the “big names” and the “big media markets”, and the rest of the league be damned 🙂

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        1. I wouldn’t put it past him. I vividly remember Simmons going ballistic when the NBA increased the first round from best of five to best of seven RIGHT BEFORE the Lakers were set to face a tough first round opponent who could have potentially beaten them.

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    1. I wouldn’t sweat it.

      Rondo would have to be considered close to “untouchable” right now.

      Allen? I could see that because of his expiring contract, which is a valuable trading chip…but the return would have to be worthwhile, because they’d miss his offense. But then again, this summer may represent the last time in Allen’s career that he’ll have this much trade value (expiring contract and coming off a “I proved them all wrong” season).

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      1. Rondo isn’t untouchable if Chris Paul is coming back. N.O. is considering blowing up the team so why not:

        Rondo
        Allen
        Pruitt
        1st rd pick for..

        Chris Paul
        James Posey
        Mo Peterson
        2nd rd pick

        NBA Trade Machine accepts this trade. In real life, N.O. gets younger, plus a max contract expiring after next season. C’s get impact player to build around after KG/PP retire plus much needed bench depth.

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