Boston Red Sox

With the news that Kevin Youkilis is out for the season for the Boston Red Sox, baseball pundits have deemed this series a do or die series for the Sox against the rival New York Yankees this weekend.

Here is the lineup the Red Sox used on Wednesday:

Ellsbury CF, Scutaro SS, Ortiz DH, Martinez C, Drew RF, Beltre 3B, Lowell 1B, Kalish LF, Hall 2B

If that lineup seems a little bit out of the ordinary, you are right. However, abnormal batting orders have not been out of the ordinary for the Red Sox this season. They have used 94 different batting orders this season, compared to 74 for the division rival Yankees.

A mystery American League team has claimed Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon off waivers, according to FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal.

Given Papelbon's success in Boston and the lack of leverage in a waiver-claim trade, the Red Sox will most likely pull Papelbon back off waivers.

Every year in every major sport, there are several teams that will chalk up a season that did not go as planned to injuries. Usually it is done to save face when there were other problems, but at times, the team really was decimated beyond belief. The 2010 Red Sox are one of those teams.

It seems now that the Steroid Era is almost officially behind us the game of baseball has turned into a game of attrition. Much like football and hockey, only the healthy will survive.

Two of the teams that have been hit the most by injuries—the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies—got hit even harder on Monday when both teams lost their All-Star first basemen.

You would have thought that maybe all the injuries from the Red Sox would finally stop—well, they didn't.

The new victim to the injury bug is Kevin Youkilis. Youkilis came out of the ball game when he shook his right hand in pain after his first at-bat. Youkilis' MRI showed that he had torn his adductor muscle in his right thumb.

The Red Sox will decide on Tuesday whether he needs surgery. It was not told how long Youkilis will be out, but if he does have surgery his season might be in doubt.

Dave Cameron, of FanGraphs.com, posted an interesting <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/beltres-market-value/">article</a > this morning projecting the value of Adrian Beltre on the free agent market at 3 years, $45 million.

Weeks ago, most of Red Sox Nation seemed to give up on the idea that the Sox could overtake the Yankees and win the AL East. The conventional wisdom was that the team was now fighting to overtake the Rays for the Wild Card spot.

But things have recently changed. 

In the last 10 games, the Yankees are 5-5, while the Rays have gone 9-1, tying New York for the AL East lead. 

In the year 2010, any baseball fan who hasn't heard the term sabermetrics must be living in a cave, and anybody who doesn't buy into the program has to be a dinosaur.

At least, that's what they want you to think.

Bill James, currently of the Boston Red Sox, is thought of as the godfather of using statistical analysis to change the way the game is played and what should be valued.

When I did the write-up after my interview with new Red Sox OF Ryan Kalish last year, I predicted that he would be a BIG hit with Red Sox Nation when he finally arrived in Boston (though I’ll admit that I thought he’d get here in 2011, not 2010).