The Boston Red Sox defeated the Florida Marlins 8-2 at Fenway Park on Tuesday night.  David “Big Papi” Ortiz had the big night – going 2 for 3 with 3 RBI’s, 1 run scored and a walk.  Ortiz led off the 6th inning with a solo home run and then stroked a 2-run single later in the inning.  Ortiz has 4 home runs in his last 9 games and has raised his batting average to .210.  Four other Red Sox players had 2 hits each – Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Nick Green and George Kottaras.  Jason Bay and Nick Green each had 2 RBI’s as the Red Sox punded out 13 hits against 2 Marlins pitchers.

Tim Wakefiled picked up his 9th win of the season – 6 innings, 2 ER, 6 hits, 1 walk and 4 K’s.  And a trio of relievers – Manny Delcarmen, Takashi Saito and Daniel Bard – pitched the final 3 innings giving up only 1 hit and no runs with 2 strikeouts.

All in all, a great outing for the Red Sox club who have played so well at home at Fenway Park this year.  The Red Sox kept their 2 game lead over the Yankees who defeated the lowly Nationals at the New Yankee Stadium.

The Red Sox jumped all over Yankees starter Chien-Ming Wang and held on for a bumpy 6-5 win on Wednesday night at Fenway Park.  It was the 7th straight win over the Yankees during the 2009 MLB schedule.  The Red Sox took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on Jason Bay’s RBI single.  After the Yankees tied the game in the 2nd on Jorge Posada’s solo home run, the Red Sox got 2 more runs back in the bottom of the 2nd inning on RBI doubles from George Kottaras and Dustin Pedroia.  Mike Lowell’s solo home run in the 3rd inning increased the Red Sox lead to 4-1 in the 3rd inning and Kevin Youkilis’ 2-run home run in the 4th inning upped the Red Sox lead to 6-2.

Tim Wakefield and 3 relievers did just enough to preserve the win for the good guys.  Wakefield pitched 6 innings, allowing 3 earned runs on 8 hits and 3 walks.  He did have 2 K’s.  Ramon Ramirez had a rough 7th inning in which he allowed home runs to Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira before being lifted for Hideki Okajima.  Okajima worked a scoreless inning and a third and then handed the ball over to closer Jonathan Papelbon who wrapped up the win with his 15th save on the season.

Not even Mark Teixeira’s heroics could save the day for the Yankees Teixeira had 4 hits, 1 RBI and 2 runs scored, but it wasn’t enough.

The series finale is tonight – C.C. Sabathia v. Brad Penny at Fenway Park.  Wil the Red Sox be able to sweep the series and stretch the overall winning streak over the Yankees in 2009 to 8 games?  Stay tuned as we’ll keep you posted here at MyRedSoxToday!

The Red Sox defeated the Blue Jays 2-1 on Tuesday night at Fenway Park.  Tim Wakefield pitched another great home game – 8 innings, 97 pitches, 1 earned run, 5 hits, 2 walks and 3 K’s.  Jonathan Papelbon pitched a perfect 1-2-3 9th inning to preserve the much-needed win for the Red Sox and picked up his 11th save on the season.

The Red Sox got both of their runs in the 2nd inning.  Mike Lowell singled and J.D. Drew walked to set the stage for the rally.  After a Julio Lugo popout, Jeff Bailey singled to center field to knock in Lowell and Drew made a great base running move to get to 3rd base with still only 1 out.  George Kottaras took care of the rest with an RBI sacrifice fly to left field.

The Blue Jays lone run came courtesy of ex-Red Sox Kevin Millar with his 5th inning solo home run.

One side note – David Ortiz did start for the Red Sox – he went 0 for 3 with 2 K’s and 1 walk.  He left 2 runners on base.

The Red Sox trimmed the Blue Jays lead to 2 games with the win.  They could tie the Blue Jays atop the AL East with a sweep of the 3-game series at Fenway.  In Wednesday night’s match up, Brad Penny will take onBrett Cecil.

and face off against a good young pitcher in Jared Weaver.  Kottaras had this to say about the anticipation:  “It’s very exciting.  I’m going to stick with what I’ve been doing all spring and stay relaxed and just go out there and play.  It’s all I can do.  I can’t really think about too many things.  Just go out there and have fun and try and help [Wakefield] out.”

Despite the 6-3 loss to the Angels, Kottaras did a solid job in his 1st major league start.  Kottaras went 1 for 3 at the plate, and caught a good game without any wild pitches or passed balls.  Wakefield had trouble locating the strike zone all night long – only 52 strikes in 99 pitches over 6 innings – but the two plan to work on the pace of the game before Wakefield’s next start.

Let’s hope Kottaras can continue to grow and develop over the course of the season.  Getting that monkey off his back with the first start should help to ease the tensions a little bit.  We’ll keep you posted how his next start goes…

Infielder Nick Green rounded out the Red Sox 25-man opening day roster.

Here’s how the Red Sox team shapes up in 2009:

12 pitchers – Starters – Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield and Brad Penny.  Relievers – Manny Delcarmen, Javier Lopez, Justin Masterson, Hideki Okajima, Jonathan Papelbon, Ramon Ramirez and Takashi Saito.

2 Catchers – Jason Varitek and George Kottaras.

6 Infielders – David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jed Lowrie, Mike Lowell and Nick Green.

5 Outfielders – Jason Bay, Jacoby Ellsbury, J.D. Drew, Rocco Baldelli and Chris Carter.

The Red Sox have a deep team all-around, with a good mix of experienced veterans and young stars with a lot of potential.

Several players will begin the season on the 15-day disabled list – John Smoltz, Julio Lugo, Mark Kotsay, Miguel Gonzalez and Jonathan Van Every.

Today’s home opener at Fenway Park against the Tampa Bay Rays was rained out and will be played on Tuesday, April 7th at 4:05PM.  Josh Beckett will start for the Red Sox while James Shields will start for the Rays.

Red Sox nation got a little scare during Tuesday’s 9-5 win over the Minnesota Twins.  While fielding a bunt in the 2nd inning, Beckett slipped and grimaced in pain.  Red Sox coaches and players feared the worst, but it turned out to be a blister on his toe that burst and was irritating Beckett.  Beckett struggled in the inning – 8 batters, 3 runs, 3 hits – but he was able to get out of the inning with a double-play by Joe Crede and then he retired the last 6 batters he faced in the 3rd and 4th innings.  Beckett threw a little over 60 pitches total and threw another 20 pitches in the bullpen after the game to put in a solid 80-pitch effort.  Beckett is not expected to miss his next scheduled start.

The Red Sox bats picked up Beckett after the 3-run 2nd inning.  Jason Varitek, David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jason Bay all homered for the Red Sox in the win.

The last thing the Red Sox need is an injury to ace Josh Beckett.  Beckett has been lights-out this spring, so let’s hope the shaky 2nd inning was a result of him over-compensating for the blistered toe.  We’ll keep you posted with any further updates on Beckett’s status for his next scheduled start.

Once again, the Josh Bard experiment has failed.  The Red Sox had signed Bard to a non-guaranteed contract worth $1.7 million in January.  March 18th was the last day a team could put a player on unconditional release and only have to pay 30 days termination pay instead of 45 days termination pay.  Bard did catch knuckle-baller Tim Wakefield better this time around and he hit .429 in 6 spring games.  However, because minor league catcher George Kottaras showed that he could catch Wakefield without incident, the Red Sox opted to go the in-house route for the back-up catcher role.

Red Sox GM Theo Epstein had this to say about the move:  “It’s Kottaras’ job to lose right now.  We hope he continues to do a nice job, and Dusty Brown’s having a good camp as well.  This’ll get them some more time.  We had to make this move now because we need George and Wake to work together and we need to make sure we know what we have, and prepare for the season.”  Kottaras has caught another knuckle-ball pitcher – Charlie Zink – for 2 seasons at Triple-A Pawtucket, so the Red Sox felt like that put him a leg-up over Bard and Brown for the back-up role in 2009.  Epstein went on to say:  “Once Kottaras showed he could handle Wake, we decided that was the direction w4e were probably going to go in.  Kottaras had a good camp.  He looked really comfortable catching Wake the other day, which shouldn’t be a real surprise because he has good hands and he’s very comfortable batching Zink in the Minor Leagues.”

Let’s hope this move works out for the Red Sox in 2009.  The Red Sox have already indicated that they want to give starter Jason Varitek more time off this season, so we will likely see the Red Sox back-up on days even when Wakefield won’t be on the mound.  Kottaras is 26 and has had several years of Triple-A experience, so he should be up to the task.