G114: Red Sox 8, Royals 2

Red Sox - 100 112 300 - 8 13  0
Royals  - 100 000 100 - 2  5  2

Beckett (6.2-4-2-2-7, 90) retired 18 of 20 batters from the first inning through the seventh, Jason Bay went 4-for-5, Dustin Pedroia had two RBI-singles (26 straight road games!), Jacoby Ellsbury had two singles and two stolen bases (his first SBs since July 1), and Jed Lowrie smacked another triple.

Bizarre play: You've probably already seen it. In the seventh, Bay hit a drive to deep left-center. CF Mitch Maier leapt at the wall and the ball hit off the tip of his glove. It then rolled along the top of the wall (towards left field) for 12-15 feet before LF Ross Gload jumped up, swiped the ball off the wall back towards the field, caught it and fired it into the infield. Bay ended up with a double.

Screen shots (the out-of-town scores change after the second picture):








And some advice to the parents of the kid who brought the anti-Manny sign to the park: When your sign refers to a player as stupid, you should make sure all of the words are spelled correctly.

The sign (shown on FSN at the start of the bottom of the ninth, sadly edited out of mlbtv's archived game) read: "Just Manny Bein'n Manny" -- with the second "Manny" crossed out and the word "Stupid" written off to the side.

"Bein'n"?

Tampa Bay beat Cleveland 8-4 and Texas held off New York 8-6. ... Red Sox still 3 GB, Yankees 6.5 GB.

***

Josh Beckett (4.15, 107 ERA+) / Brian Bannister (5.33, 82 ERA+)

I've has this link sitting around for awhile and I'm pretty sure I never posted it.

Seattle Times, April 20, 2008:

Ask [Bannister] how deeply he has delved into statistical analysis, and he says, "Oh, as deep as anybody. I've gone as deep as you could go, so far."

If there's a Web site or book that presents some provocative new way of looking at baseball and its numbers, chances are strong Bannister has checked it out.

"What it has stirred up is really fun," he said. "Because here's a whole group of baseball fans that were kind of outcasts, or ignored, or everyone said they were crazy. The truth is coming out that they have some interesting things to say. If I can bridge that gap a little bit, I'm happy to do that."

SI's Jon Heyman has an article examining the apparent nuts and bolts of last week's trade. (Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also has a few nuggets.

Alex Eisenberg (who runs Baseball Intellect) has an article at The Hardball Times: "Why Jason Bay Makes The Red Sox A Better Team".

Scoreboard Watching: Spiders/Rays at 7 PM and Yankees/Rangers at 8 PM