God Bless You Boomer

The Boston Red Sox returned home from a road trip that left their playoff chances reeling. They won one of three against Tampa Bay Devil Rays, then got swept by the Kansas City Royals. So today they start a three game series against the Baltimore Orioles with aging, back-injury prone David Wells taking the mound. God bless him, Boomer pitches his first good game this year -- an admittedly small sample size, but I'll take whatever good news I can find about the Red Sox. The offense helped as well, giving him 9 runs to work with, scoring 7 in a monster third inning.

Meanwhile, the Chicago White Sox face the Detroit Tigers in a pivotal three game match up. Dear God, I can't believe I just wrote that. What a hack.

However, hackery or not, it's pretty much true. Unless the Sox sweep the Tigers, the best they'll be is 7.5 games back for the division, not really close enough to expect a run that puts them over for the division. I've long since given up on seeing the Tigers break down this year, so, without a sweep, the best the White Sox do is a wild card.

Thankfully, Contreras has a no hitter through 5 innings. At least tonight he looks like he did last year, when he was the true ace of the staff for the last month of the season and through the playoffs.

UPDATE: The Red Sox endup winning 9-2, and hopefully the fact the bullpen got the night off for the most part will rejuvenate some of those arms. Wells went 7, giving up an earned run on 9 hits, with a walk and 4 strike outs. Kyle Snyder pitched the last two, giving up another run.

Contreras lost his no-hitter after getting the first two outs in the 6th. He finished the game, giving the other Sox bullpen its own day of rest, giving up three hits total, no runs, one walk, and getting 5 strike outs. The downside of the win was that the White Sox hitters left 13 runners on. They really should have gotten a few more runs in. They ended up winning 5-0.

Technorati tags: baseball