Thanks to MLB Network I was able to catch the last inning on TV tonight, it was actually on even earlier but I chose the Celtics/Magic game over the Red Sox. I made the right choice given how great of a game the Celtics game was, Jeff Van Gundy said at some point that this Celtics team is every bit as good as the team that won the NBA championship in 2008 and I agree. The declines (due to age) of Allen, Garnet and Pierce have been offset by the emergence of Rondo, the guy is just a stud and I don't see anyone of the remaining point guards being able to slow him down, never mind stop him.
As for the Red Sox, it was yet another up and down game. Beckett stunk once again, and Papelbon was super shaky in the 9th, but they got the win and thats what matters. The question I keep asking myself is, how long does John Farrell have as the pitching coach? If there's nothing physically wrong with Beckett, and there's no reason not to put him on the DL given that they have Wakefield in the pen, then I see a trend of bad mechanics in a bunch of the pitchers, most notably tonight's starter and closer. Beckett has the worst ERA in the majors among starters with enough innings to qualify, and Lackey is 86th. That's absolutely abysmal for two guys that are making big money on new contracts. I'm sure that part of their struggles are due to pressing, they both come across as driven, emotional guys, but there's also part of this that has to fall on the pitching coach (again, if no injuries are involved) since there's nothing in either guy's track record that would lead you to believe they'd be this bad.
So they're back at .500, 8.5 GB the Rays who just never seem to lose, and heading home to play the Twins and Phillies for the next 5 at Fenway. I'm very much in 'prove to me I should get excited' mode at this point, a 4-1 run over the next 5 would at least get me going in that direction.
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