Like Surfers, Riding a Great Wake

A couple quick points that absolutely have to be mentioned before getting into some quick grades. Big primary/Celtics playoff nights will do that to the best of us, even if - like WMYM - you do blow off the first half of the C's face off to make sure you catch all nine Sox innings.


-- Wakefield looked better than he has since '97. Did anyone see that coming? We sure as hell didn't. He was absolutely unhittable.

-- Kevin Cash is hitting .362? With a .472 slugging? Really? Is everyone else as shocked about this as WMYM is?

-- Those back-to-back David Ortiz-Manny Ramirez blasts were the biggest set of consecutive bombs dropped by that duo since Cleveland last year in the ALCS. Those shots were CRUSHED. The fact that ManRam knocked out 497 on the first pitch ever offered by a recent call-up from the minors is almost painful to watch. Just makes you cringe.

-- The play-by-play and color duo on Fox Sports Net Detroit are approximately an 18 on the 1-10 unintentional comedy scale. At one point, color commentator Rod Allen called Cy Young's 1908 hairstyle "fried, died and cut down the middle". After trying to not act surprised, play-by-play guy Rod Impemba finally gave up and had him explain the phrase, and it still made no sense. The two seem so ill fit that they're actually mildly entertaining to listen to, and not nearly as homer-ish as most team's (cough, cough, AL East rivals, cough) duos. A nice change of pace.

STARTING PITCHING: √+
Like we said earlier, best Wakefield start in a decade. Seriously. He was that good. Wake had a one-hitter entering the eighth, and he did that WITH NO WALKS!! You know how hard it is to throw a knuckleballing one-hitter without any walks? It's impossible, that's how hard it is. Well, eventually it became a two-hitter ... again WITHOUT ANY WALKS! Say what you will, but the way Wakefield had the flutterball going today, he was as effective as any pitcher in the bigs. Want more proof? Just consider that the game lasted only a few minutes more than two hours, yet the Sox constantly had runners all over the bases and scored five runs. End of discussion.

MIDDLE RELIEF: N/A
How many times have we been able to say that lately? If there were any question about just how effective the starting pitching has been over the past couple weeks, it can easily be traced back in our postgame breakdowns. That's a true testament.

SET-UP RELIEF: N/A
Another day, another chance for the end of 'pen guys to take a breather.

CLOSER: √
Mike Timlin gave up a single to his first batter, which is always a bit of a concern with a guy who labors like Timlin does. Still, he immediately settled and induced a double play, then finished things off with a pop up. Against bats like Detroit's, that counts as a very solid outing from a guy still making his way back to full strength and re-defining his role.

LINEUP: √
This should probably be a √+ again, but the Sox just left too many runners on. This easily could have been an 8-0 or 9-0 game after the fifth inning, yet Boston failed to capitalize on the batters who reached base without outs. Or with only one out. It's starting to become a bit of a recurring problem. Still, the Big Papi and ManRam homers are nice to see, particularly the Ramirez shot, which, if nothing else, gets him one dinger closer to 500 and getting that monkey off his bat. You can practically see it swinging off his bat right now, so the sooner it's over with, the better he'll start looking. Also, Julio Lugo continues to impress everyone, right? Sure, the errors are up, but so is the batting average and, even more impressive, the OBP. Just when you're ready to hand the job over the Jed Lowrie, Lugo starts playing pissed and looks like the guy Bill James has been lusting over all these years. 

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