Boston Red Sox

As the Sox look forward to the first round of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, there are a few things that we DO know:

1) According to the NY Daily News, the Red Sox and Angels will play in ALDS Series B, meaning they’ll play on Thursday and Friday nights in Los Angeles at 9:37 PM EST, followed by games here in Boston on Sunday and Monday…the fifth game in LA will be played on Wednesday, if necessary. No surprise here.

Hello, fellow Bleacher Creatures.  I wanted to let you know that early this afternoon I was able to track down John Frascella, author of Theology: How A Boy Wonder Led the Red Sox to the Promised Land (which can be purchased on Amazon.com and Borders.com), to discuss the upcoming Major League Playoffs.

The Red Sox sent Daisuke Matsuzaka to the mound last night hoping to roll a seven, but with the knowledge they might roll snake-eyes.

The ‘pitching surplus’ the front office believed it had stocked last winter had turned out to be a mirage due to ineffectiveness (Penny and Smoltz) and injury (Matsuzaka and Wakefield).

The rapid maturation of Clay Buchholz had helped plug the dike, but the recent struggles of ace Josh Beckett caused many to question whether this team could make a run deep into October.

According to a recent article on MLBTradeRumors.com (seen here), the Red Sox had offered six of their best young pitchers (Justin Masterson, Felix Doubront, Nick Hagadone, Clay Buchholz, Daniel Bard, and Michael Bowden) to the Toronto Blue Jays for their ace, Roy Halladay, before the trade deadline of July 31.

This deal seems incredibly un-Theo Epstein-like. Since arriving in Boston in 2003, Epstein has repeatedly preached prospect development.

It was a rain shortened week for the Boston Red Sox who will make up Friday's rainout Sunday afternoon for a day/night doubleheader against the visiting Tampa Bay Rays.

The Lowell Spinners' 2009 season, and their quest for a New-York Penn League Championship, ended Saturday night in Staten Island, NY, as the Yankees used a five-run second inning to coast to a 5-1 victory, winning the rubber game of a three-game playoff series and sending the Spinners home for the offseason.

The loss ended a record-setting season for Lowell, the Class A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.  The team won the most games in the franchise's 14-year history and several players broke individual franchise records in the process. 

Recently, Michael Silverman of the "Boston Herald" published a list of Boston Red Sox trade deadline and other late July trades under Theo Epstein's stewardship (which you can see here: http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=11...).

In Silverman's list, he virtualy ranked the deals by the amount of success the team had after the trade. While that may be a big part about looking back past trades, it should not be the only way. This article is correcting some of the errors Silverman had made.

You probably won't agree with all my choices.

With 23 games remaining in the regular season, it appears it is safe to say the Red Sox will not be the AL East Champions in 2009—that title will almost certainly belong to the NY Yankees. Hopefully, it is the only title the Evil Empire will lay claim to in 2009.

So, the next goal for the Olde Towne Team is making the playoffs.