Ketchup

No, not ketchup...catch up. I'm caught up on things now, and it's time to get back to the daily grind of regular blogging. I know it's been a while, as was evidenced by the email from my father this morning that questioned where the hell my blog about our adventures in Puerto Rico was. Well, it's one below this one, in case you can't see it for yourself at this given time. Onto current events...

Last night was a great way to come back from the All-Star break for the Sox. Getting swept by the Tigers wasn't what I was looking for going into the break, and if you saw how bad Tito looked after that series you might reconsider those three days off being a pain in the ass; Tito needed the rest.

Anyway, we now possess the only starting rotation with 3 10-game winners, as Knuckles joined Beckett and Dice-K last night in the Sox second dismantling of Doc Halladay this season. It just goes to show that working the counts and making a power pitcher throw a lot of pitches can only benefit your offense eventually. The core of Manny and Ortiz carried the load last night, even with Papi's supposed bum knee. I don't know how concerned to be with this knee thing, but if he's going 3-for-5 and knocking in runs like he did last night, then I'm not going to sit and stew over it. Regardless of whether or not they're hitting home runs, as long as they're productive (as they've been most of the season) it doesn't really matter what the power numbers are. But they're going to catch fire at some point and the balls will start flying.

Look who's 5 for his last 9, everyone! It's the guy whose chalk outline has been drawn into the dirt at shortstop for the last few months! I'm not proclaiming Lugo to be out of his gargantuan slump just yet, but his average has found its way over .200 for the first time since the end of June. He says he's seeing the ball better and that certainly would account for his better contact lately. Let's give him July to keep this little roll going and then re-assess things in August. Needless to say, his bat would be HUGE in this lineup if it starts heating up.

Unfortunately, the end of the first half of the season brought the end of the first Jacoby Ellsbury stint. In 6 games, he hit .375 with a double, an RBI, a stolen base and 7 total bases. I can't wait for him to be our regular center fielder, but he's not there yet. I hope to see him in the starting lineup by the end of next season, however.

10 games up in the AL East, fairly healthy and the most favorable schedule in the MLB. Buckle up, folks. It's going to be an exciting few months of baseball around here and I couldn't be happier about it.