Hello? Helllllooooo? Any Wakefield Bashers out there? Yeah you heard me, all of you who have had nothing good to say about Wakes the whole year, can now officially stick your foot into your mouth. Lets see now, in Wakes last three STARTS he's, hmmmm, help me out here, 3-0! Pretty much singled handedly he's kept us in the race. Wakes should have been in the rotation from day one, not to say he'd would have been perfect, but it's obvious where he belongs. If the writing isn't on the wall to keep him in the rotaion now, then it never will be.
Ok, I got that out of my system, onto the game. As I mentioned above Tim Wakefiled pitched another superb game running his record to 3-0 in his last three starts. Against a very good team in the Braves, Wakes went seven strong, yielding six hits, two earned runs, one walk, and three wiffs. If Tim can get a hot streak going combined with the return of Pedro and Fasssero to the rotation, things are looking good for the second half.
The big stick of the game belonged to none other than Nomar. It is me, or is Nomar simply the best hitter in the game right now? Every night he's good for two or three hits. Yesterday was no exception as Nomar went 2-3 with two dingers, three runs, and three RBIs. The rest of the run production belonged to Jose Offerman and Jason Varitek. Offerman, who has been swinging a very hot bat lately, went 2-5 with two RBIs, rasing his average to .258 on the season. No small feat considering where he was a month ago. And Tek, he went 3-4 with a run and 2 RBIs on the day and seems to be picking it up a notch lately.
I'm gald we were atleast able to pull out this last game of the series. There's nothing worse than losing the final game before the All-Star break and being left to stew for three days in a row. The Sox pick the season back up on Thursday with the New York Mets coming to town. I don't believe it's been made official, but I'm sure Pedro will be on the mound to start the second half to begin our run at the top.