Banged Up Red Sox Still Steamrolling Over Everyone

More than a few Red Sox are banged up, but it has not slowed the team down at all.

Since April 16   40-17  .702
Since May 7      28- 9  .757
Since May 24     17- 5  .772
Since June 3     12- 1  .923 (outscoring opp. 100-46)

The Red Sox lead all MLB teams in batting average, on-base percentage, runs, runs per game, hits, doubles, RBI, total bases, and OPS. They are second in walks and slugging percentage (.004 behind the Yankees), and third in home runs.

John Lackey:

One thing you can hang your hat on when you're out there is if you give up a couple of runs, hang in there because the boys are coming, (and) they can really swing it.

Carl Crawford suffered a minor left hamstring strain in the first inning last night. He said the hamstring was "a little sore" and "we'll come back [Saturday] and see how things are." The implication in the morning papers was that the Red Sox may play it very conservative and put Crawford on the DL. [Update: And they do. Crawford on DL, Reddick called up.]

Jed Lowrie is on the disabled list with a strained left shoulder, although an MRI did not show any significant damage. "It's pretty stiff. ... I don't know how they're wording it per se ["strain"], I just know it felt like it slipped out."

Terry Francona:

[H]e had the bruising back there, and then you get some weakness because of it, and I think that's probably why he felt there was either a mild subluxation ... that was the feeling. I think you get swelling, you get bruising and you lose strength. So regardless of what we call it, we need to get that thing stronger, and to do that we're going to have to let it settle down first and get him on a pretty good strength program ...

Clay Buchholz will not make his scheduled start on Tuesday. Buchholz was given an extra two days of rest before his start last Thursday, but lasted only five innings and 81 pitches. Buchholz said he "felt like I was having to manipulate my delivery for it not to hurt and that's something you don't want to do". He also admitted he should have told the team how much it was bothering him. "It feels all muscular. It's not going up and down my leg (like a nerve). It's just in one particular spot."

Jonathan Papelbon's suspension was reduced to two games. He began serving it last night, and will be available Sunday afternoon. "I asked for two games and they looked at the videotape and I guess decided that two games was fair enough ..."

It's official: Andrew Miller will be called up from Pawtucket for Monday night's game.

On June 1, Rich Hill had Tommy John surgery to repair his torn ulnar collateral ligament, which he was told had been "hanging on by a thread".

I think 10-12 months is what I'm going to shoot for. I think 12-14 is probably something that's more realistic, but ... everybody is different, everybody heals differently. You don't want to push it. This isn't something that one month is going to make a difference as far as years. You don't want to end up having to backtrack.