But other than the one game blemish there are allot of happy faces in Boston after this weekend's series. Just like I said in my write-up a few days ago, if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best, and I wanted nothing less than three games from this series. Especially with the team now headed to New York come next weekend.

But for now, it's off to Tampa Bay, and we can't slack off, not even a little. As well as things are going right now we can't lose focus of the fact that Nomar is still not with us and that we need to hold on until his return. If the pitching keeps up the way it's going, or even half as good as it's going, I think things will stay in our favor.

As for yesterday's game itself, it was (to me) basically a spattering of runs with allot Frank Castillo to go with it. After a rocky outing against the Os last time out Castillo came back very strong and pitched six shut-out innings. He exited the game after only 65 pitches (not due to injury) which tells me that Jimy and Joe are being very careful with him and that he's still a fragile pitcher. The chances of Castillo going the full season without interruption (be it the DL or just skipping a start here and there) is remote, but until it happens I'll take exactly what we've been getting so far.

I agree with this move. With April and May being of importance (bigger importance than usual) this year, we can't afford to let games slip away that we have won. Rod Beck and Rolando Arrojo have both thus far been up to the challenge of closing and until Lowe can get back on his feet, it looks like we'll be fine in that department.

paul@redsox2000.com