The Boston Red Sox were 4-2 last week as they outscored their opponents 35-32.  The Red Sox did it last week by swinging the bats as their pitching wasn’t that great.  The Red Sox entered this week with a 34-15 record which has them in 1st place in the American League East, 11.5 games ahead of the Orioles.

24 year old lefty swinging Jacoby Ellsbury is having a great season in the minors.  With Coco Crisp struggling the Red Sox might look to Ellsbury who is the #2 rated prospect in their organization according to Baseball America.  In 36 games so far in AA+AAA ball, Ellsbury is 56 for 155 (.361 avg, .934 OPS) with 32 runs, 16 RBIs and 16 stolen bases.  Look for the Red Sox to either give Ellsbury a chance soon or use him as a quality trading chip to get whatever they need at the trading deadline.

The Red Sox signed lefty reliever Hideki Okajima with little fanfare in the off season.  But he has stepped up big time in the Red Sox bullpen so far this season.  Okajima has pitched in 21 games this season and he’s 0-0 with 2 saves, a 0.79 ERA and a 0.79 WHIP.  In 22.2 innings, he has only allowed 12 hits and 6 walks while whiffing 24 batters.  He is just plain nasty on lefties as his slider is a big breaker and is almost impossible to hit.  The Sox hope he keeps up this pace, because having him and Papelbon at the end of games isn’t fair.

Joel Pineiro has pitched pretty bad so far this season and he could be running out of time if he doesn’t straighten out soon.  In 15 games this season, Pineiro is 0-0 with a 5.71 ERA and a 1.73 WHIP.  Pineiro has thrown 17.1 innings and he’s allowed 22 hits, walked 8 batters and whiffed only 6.  Look for him to get released soon if he doesn’t start to pitch better.

The Red Sox went 5-2 last week as they outscored their opponents 34-31.  The Red Sox had a lot of timely hits last week to make their decent pitching stand up.  The Red Sox entered this week with a 30-13 record which had them in first place in the American League East, 10.5 games ahead of the Yankees and Orioles.