After tonight’s game it’s on to Toronto for a three-game series where the Blue Jays did the Sox a big and unanticipated favour by sweeping the Rays over the weekend and then on to Texas for three very tough games given how well the Rangers are playing at present.  By that point, however, the Sox should have both Ellsbury and Pedroia back.

On a more amusing note I came across a story that would be pretty cool if true concerning what an umpire is reported to have said to a young pitcher.  Bear in mind that Ted Williams was the greatest player in Red Sox history, probably the greatest hitter of all time, the only hitter in the history of the baseball to bat .400 over an entire season and the owner of an on-base percentage record (.551) that stood for 61 years.  The story goes that a young pitcher was complaining about a pitch to Williams that the umpire called a ball. The umpire allegedly says, “Son, when the pitch is a strike, Mr. Williams will let you know.”

Additionally we get eight innings from Beckett and a bench-clearing piece of revenge-seeking from a Cleveland reliever resulting in three ejections.  Jennifer definitely didn’t see a dull game.

And, unlike Sunday, Papelbon gets the job done and closes out the win in an economical 12 pitches. Much better.

I’d estimate the absence of these players has cost the Sox something in the order of five to ten games, enough to place them in a three-way tie with the Yankees and Rays atop the AL East. It’s extremely frustrating, to put it extremely mildly.

In other news my friend Jennifer, a die-hard Mets fan from Long Island is currently on vacation in Boston and is in Fenway Park at this very moment, watching the Sox take on (and beat, I hope!) the Indians. Obviously, this makes me insanely jealous.

via I Can Has Cheezburger.