Red Sox 07 Game 101

			@
J. Beckett		13-3, 3.41		Fausto Carmona		12-4, 3.52
Red Sox		61-39		Indians		58-42

Wednesday, July 25    Jacobs Field ♊  7:05 PM ET

American League

East	W	L	GB	L 10	X W	X L
Boston	61	39	-	6-4	61	39
New York	53	46	7.5	8-2	60	39
Toronto	50	50	11.0	6-4	52	48
Baltimore	45	53	15.0	7-3	49	49
Tampa	38	61	22.5	3-7	37	62

ESPN.Com Preview .
Yahoo's Preview .
ESPN.Com after the game Recap.
MLB.Com Press Pass
From MLB.Com Scouting Report

Red Sox: Beckett set down every batter he faced after giving up a one-out, third-inning home run to Chicago's Jim Thome. All told, he allowed three earned runs and four hits and struck out 10 batters, his first 10-plus strikeout game since April 10, 2005, when he was a member of the Marlins. With the victory, Beckett joined C.C. Sabathia atop the American League wins leaderboard.

Indians: Carmona was brilliant Friday in Texas, pitching a three-hit shutout for eight innings before exiting after 105 pitches. In four July starts, Carmona is 4-0 with a 2.05 ERA. He will be facing Boston for the first time this season and the first time in his career as a starter. In two relief appearances against the Red Sox last season, Carmona blew two save chances and sustained two losses by allowing five earned runs over one inning of work.

As usual all statistics were found at the day by day database at Baseball Musings and this year at Baseball Reference.

Sox Batting vs Carmona

Player	AB	H	2b	3b	HR's	RBI	BB's	K's	BA
C. Crisp	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	.000
D. Pedroia	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
D. Ortiz	1	1	0	0	1	3	0	0	1.000
M. Ramirez	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
K. Youkilis	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	.000
M. Lowell	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
J. Varitek	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
J.D. Drew	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
J. Lugo	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Totals	2	1	0	0	1	3	2	1	.500

Not a lot of history here as the Sox only faced Fausto a couple of times, one was a walk off by Loretta (his second) when he crushed a double off the wall last year on 8/2. The other game was when David hit his home run vs this kid on 7/31 of last year.

Of course that was after the Indians had traded their closer to the Braves and were looking at Carmona as the possible closer. Needless to say that experiment ended shortly after those fiasco's and that is why he is in the starting rotation.

Pitching Comparisons

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Beckett	3	1	2	0	16 2/3	20	17	6	6	16	9.18	1.56	5.56
Carmona	0	0	2	0	1	3	5	1	2	2	45.00	5.0	-

Like I said earlier Fausto only faced the Sox those two games and lost both of them on walk offs as a reliever. The good news, the Sox have seen him as a closer, the bad news is that he is now a starter and is making his first start vs the Sox. That is usually not good.

Beckett struggled against Cleveland last year (on 4/27 and 8/3), going 0-2 in 9 2/3. All of the home runs were given up in those two games (3 each) and the first game he walked 5. Needless to say he turned it around this year as he went 7 innings of 3 hit ball and only allowed 2 earned runs on 5/29.

Tonight is a night where he can really show that some of his bad starts last year were only due to unfamiliarity with the league. Look for that to hold tonight as we get another nail biter!
Later - When all else fails, get a bigger hammer!