Patriots targeting Orakpo?

A quick break from Red Sox-Yankees coverage:

Peter King is reporting that the Patriots are trying to move into the eighth or ninth spot of Saturday's first round. Given the way Bill Belichick has talked about trades, it's likely they have a specific player in mind.

"You trade up for someone in the first round in the top 10 or so, you are going for a specific guy," Belichick told reporters at his press conference on Tuesday. "How much that guy is worth to you is how much you are willing to give up. It might be high based on what other people think, but if that’s what you think the player brings to your team, then it’s worth giving it up."

Writes King, "Who might be the object of their affection? I'm told it may be a surprise, because smart money would say the target is LSU's Tyson Jackson, the best 3-4 defensive end in the draft and the only end versatile enough to play every spot on the defensive line. But I'm not sure it's Jackson. I think it might be an offensive player. Sorry to be so cryptic, but I truly don't know."

Jackson? Really?

There are a couple of reasons why Jackson doesn't make sense here. For one thing, there's no guarantee he'll be around at No. 8 or No. 9; King's colleague Don Banks has him going No. 9 to Green Bay, but the Raiders and Jaguars could use some help on the defensive line, too.

Another name, though, ought to be a little more intriguing: Texas combo end Brian Orakpo, the top pass-rusher in the draft. According to ESPN.com's draft scouts, "Technique needs refining. But he has elite natural pass-rushing skills. Explodes off the line and bends the corner nicely. Displays excellent closing burst to the QB. He's agile and can smoothly change directions on double moves. Also shows jarring punch to knock OT's off balance."

He played mostly defensive end at Texas, winning the Ted Hendricks Award as college football's best at that position. But Belichick loves taking defensive ends and turning them into linebackers, and Orakpo sounds like someone right out of the Willie McGinest/Mike Vrabel mold. (Texas even installed some 3-4 defense a year ago when defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, a former Nick Saban assistant and thus Bill Belichick Coaching Tree offshoot, came on board.)

He'll be long gone by the time the Patriots draft at No. 23. But if they deal that No. 23 pick along with a second-round to move into the top 10, Orakpo might be a perfect fit.

Fun with numbers: Red Sox-Yankees

Here's a smorgasbord of numbers to chew on as we get ready for Red Sox-Yankees tonight:

Against Joba Chamberlain:
* Mike Lowell is 3-for-7;
* Dustin Pedroia is 3-for-8;
* Kevin Youkilis is 2-for-5;
whereas
* J.D. Drew is 0-for-7;
* Jacoby Ellsbury is 0-for-6;
* David Ortiz is 1-for-6;

Not one of those sample sizes is big enough to mean anything. It is fascinating, though, that Chamberlain, a righthander, has eaten the Red Sox lefthanders for lunch. That's not typical; in his career, lefties have an OPS of .627 against Chamberlain; righties have an OPS of .589.

Against Jon Lester:
* Melky Cabrera is 5-for-8;
* Johnny Damon is 5-for-12;
* Derek Jeter is 5-for-13;
whereas
* Alex Rodriguez, who David Ortiz still maintains is the best player in baseball, is 1-for-11;
* Nick Swisher is 1-for-6
* Mark Teixeira is 0-for-3
* Jorge Posada is 0-for-3

Again, tiny sample sizes that don't really mean anything.

At Fenway Park:
* Jeter has a line of .252/.314/.382
* Teixeira has a line of .194/.363/.274
(He's walked 14 times in 80 plate appearances.)
* Swisher has a line of .205/.321/.364
* Damon always gets booed.

One last fun number -- well, sort of:
* This kid wasn't even alive the last time the Yankees won the World Series. ("It's fun to do bad things," he says.)

(OK, so that was just an excuse to post that link. But that clip is fantastic.)

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 3

You could make a reasonable argument for either of two pitchers to claim the No. 2 spot on the Top 100 list. (If you're hoping for a surprise pick at No. 1, well, you're going to be disappointed. There's not much suspense there.)

Here's the Top 10 list so far:
(For the full countdown, click here.)
10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF
5. Roger Clemens, P
4. Jimmie Foxx, 1B

And the second-greatest pitcher in Red Sox history is:

3. Denton True "Cy" Young
Had he pitched his entire career with the Red Sox, he'd be a clear choice for top pitcher in franchise history -- and he'd probably be No. 1 on this list. He weas 34 years old, though, when he jumped from the St. Louis Browns to the brand-new American League franchise in Boston; he'd already won 30 games three different times and thrown, to that point, 418 complete games. (That total alone would rank him 16th in baseball history.)

He would win 192 more games with the Red Sox; he's tied with Roger Clemens for first in franchise history in that category. His ERA tucked nicely in at 1.99, second-best in franchise history. No one in franchise history has a lower WHIP (0.970).

He was coming off a 19-19 season with the St. Louis Browns in which his ERA had skyrocketed -- skyrocketed! -- to 3.00. In 1901, though, he went 33-10 with a league-best 1.62 ERA; he pitched 371 1/3 innings, starting 41 games and completing 38 of them. His adjusted ERA+ of 216 ranks fifth in Red Sox history for a single season.

A year later, he went 32-11 with a 2.15 ERA and 41 complete games. Ho-hum.

In 1903, he went 28-9 with a 2.08 ERA and 34 complete games, including seven shutouts. He even earned two saves. And in the World Series, he turned in a 1.85 ERA; he struck out 17 and walked just four. His best effort came when he allowed only two runs -- both unearned -- in nine innings in Game 5. He came back on two days' rest to throw nine more innings, allowing three runs, and earn his second win of the series in Game 7.

By the time he was finished -- he played out the string with Cleveland as a 42-, 43- and 44-year-old before an abbreviated stint with the Boston Braves -- he'd won 511 games and sealed a legacy as the greatest pitcher baseball has ever seen.

We'd be remiss, though, if we finished without addressing the really pressing question: Where did that nickname come from, anyway?

He was pitching for Canton, Ohio, in the Tri-State League, a minor league with an affiliation agreement with the National League and American Association. He'd just agreed to a deal that would pay him $60 a month for his services. He was eager to impress his new team, so he threw a couple of fastballs against a fence at the home park.

"I threw the ball so hard," he later said, "I tore a couple of boards off the grandstand. One of the fellows said the stand looked like a cyclone struck it."

By the spring, the local newspaper was listing "Cyclone, p" in its box scores. By 1956, his name was synonymous with the best pitcher in baseball.

Coming up: Pedro.

Don't look for patterns with Belichick

Yes, there's been a distinct lack of pre-draft Patriots blogging from this exit off the Information Superhighway. There are, however, good reasons for that:

1. The Red Sox started their season.
2. There are people who cover this more thoroughly than I could.
3. I don't know who the Patriots will draft.
4. No one knows who the Patriots will draft.

Here's one thought, though, looking ahead to Saturday: Don't expect Belichick to adhere to pattern. There isn't any pattern.

Here's the list of players Belichick has selected in the first three rounds since he arrived in New England -- and how many have panned out:
* Defensive backs: 6 (3, though it's too early for Terrence Wheatley)
* Linebackers: 2 (1, though it's too early for Shawn Crable)
* Defensive linemen: 4 (3, though it's hard to consider the late Marquise Hill a bust)
* Offensive linemen: 4 (3)
* Running backs: 2 (0)
* Wide receivers: 3 (1)
* Tight ends: 3 (3)
* Quarterbacks: 1 (0; it's too early for Kevin O'Connell, too)

What does that tell us?

Not much.

Belichick has drafted 12 defensive players (7 have panned out) and 13 offensive players (7 have panned out). He's resisted taking linebackers high -- but we all know how well the selection of Jerod Mayo worked out a year ago.

The most interesting number is defensive back -- particularly since so many expect a premium defensive back to be available when the Patriots' turn comes around. ESPN's bloggers had the Patriots selecting Vontae Davis -- with James Laurinaitis and Donald Brown still on the board -- in a mock draft posted this morning.

The Patriots have Ellis Hobbs returning as a starter at one corner and Leigh Bodden, Shawn Springs, Terrence Wheatley and Jonathan Wilhite set to compete to start at the other corner. At safety, Brandon Meriweather and James Sanders can be penciled in as starters -- but there isn't much behind them.

There doesn't appear to be a whole lot of need at corner. Springs and Bodden both can be useful, and Wheatley and Wilhite both showed flashes of ability during their rookie seasons. But there'll be quite a bit of talent available at that position, and Belichick knows as well as anyone how a secondary can be decimated by injury.

That might mean Belichick will draft a corner. That might mean Belichick will draft a linebacker.

All we think we know is that he won't draft a quarterback in the first round -- but with the way he's operated in the past, can we really put anything past him?

Wakefield in exclusive company, sort of

"Tim, the list of guys who have thrown back-to-back complete games at your age is very small," one reporter told Tim Wakefield, prefacing a question in Wednesday afternoon's postgame press conference.

"Is there only one?" Wakefield cut in to ask.

"No, there's a few."

"Dang it," Wakefield said.

The 42-year-old knuckleballer has a long way to go to break that particular record; Phil Niekro turned the trick in July of 1986, three months after he'd turned 47.

Still, though, he's the oldest pitcher to throw back-to-back complete games in Red Sox history -- and he's the oldest pitcher to turn the trick since Charlie Hough in 1992.

It doesn't even matter that he backed into the feat. He probably wouldn't have pitched nine innings, but when umpires called the game in the bottom of the seventh inning, he had himself his second straight complete game. (In case you've been living under a rock, he threw a complete game in Oakland a week ago, taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning and finishing the game from there to bail out a totally depleted Red Sox bullpen.)

"I'll take it," he said.

He allowed one earned run in seven innings, striking out four and walking just one. He ran into a bit of trouble in the top of the fifth but wiggled out when he got Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer to pop out with the bases loaded.

Other than that, he was flawless. By the time the Red Sox hit three two-run home runs in the first three innings, the game was all but over.

"I was able to make some pitches I don't normally throw," he said. "I threw some fastballs, got a strikeout on a fastball today and got a strikeout on a curveball today. I was able to throw other pitches I normally didn't throw; I was able to pitch to the scoreboard. (The offense) made my job a lot easier today."

He also once again rescued the Red Sox bullpen. A week ago, he needed to go deep because a series of short outings by starting pitchers had all but exhausted any options Terry Francona had for the late innings. On Wednesday, the doubleheader meant Red Sox pitchers would have to throw 18 innings in a single day; a short outing by Wakefield would have put a big onus on Brad Penny to pitch deep into the nightcap.

No worries. At this point, thanks to Tuesday's rainout and Thursday's off-day, Francona might be forced to lift Penny early just to get his bullpen a little bit of work.

"It wasn't as urgent as it was in Oakland, knowing that the guys had a breather last night going into today," Wakefield said. "We had a full 'pen. I was able to go seven, and the game got called. I fell into that one by accident, so now we've got another full bullpen for tonight's game."

Staying sane during rain delays

Umpires just called off the first game of the Red Sox-Twins doubleheader in the seventh inning, handing the Red Sox a 10-1 win (and Tim Wakefield his second straight complete game).

Both teams retreated to their respective clubhouses to wait out the rain delay -- just as they did a night ago before a gam that never ended up being played.

"Pedey was screaming," David Ortiz said. "That's the longest three hours, man, when you've got a little man screaming."

***

A reporter asked Ortiz for his thoughts on the turnaround in attitude in the span of a week. Last week, the Red Sox were 2-6 and a hopeless mess. Coming off a stretch in which they've scored 48 runs in six games, winning all six, the Red Sox look like a juggernaut again.

"That’s Boston," he said. "People panic too easy here. I’ve been here seven years, man, and the years we’ve struggled the most, we win the World Series – and then there’s some other years when things are looking good and then injuries happen. ...

"Sometimes, I guess, panicking, that’s what makes the game interesting. But sometimes that gets the game all (expletived) up, too. I don’t know. I love it. It’s OK. It’s good with me. I’ve been dealing with that (expletive) for years, so I know how it goes."

It's getting easier being Green

Talk about redeeming yourself. Nick Green just hit a two-run home run that cleared the Monster seats and landed somewhere on Lansdowne Street -- or the parking garage across from the ballpark.

(Now you know why they call it the Green Monster.)

(Yes, that joke was inevitable.)

(It's better than making an Earth Day joke, isn't it?)

It was the shortstop's first big-league home run since 2006; he hit 12 home runs in 431 at-bats with Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes-Barre last season.

It's not easy being Green

Great. Just when we make the decision to highlight Nick Green's throwing arm, he makes a throwing error in the second inning -- a play that could have gone either way in the official scorebook. It's his third error through 13-plus games at shortstop.

It took some nifty glovework, though, just to get to the low line drive off the bat of Joe Crede; he shorthopped it where the dirt meets the grass and came up throwing. He might have rushed his throw -- something he said this week has been a problem for him in the past -- and Kevin Youkilis couldn't make the scoop.

Youkilis, by the way, just keeps seeing everything he hits land somewhere fortuitous. This time, it was in the second row of the right-field bleachers, just beyond the Pesky Pole; a few feet in either direction, and it's either a foul ball or an out. It was Youkilis' team-best fourth home run of the season.

***

Happy birthday, Terry Francona.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 4

With the Yankees set to visit Fenway Park this weekend, let's take a look at a slugger who could have hit his home runs for the Bronx Bombers and not the Red Sox:

(For the entire countdown, click here.)
10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF
5. Roger Clemens, P

4. Jimmie Foxx, 1B
"Home Run" Baker, managing in the Eastern Shore League in Maryland in 1924, robbed us of perhaps the greatest switch-hitting slugger in baseball history when he told a teenage Jimmie Foxx that "no good hitter has to turn around." Foxx, already perhaps the best young athlete in Maryland by the age of 16, had tinkered with hitting from the left side of the plate but abandoned the effort upon the urging of his manager (and hero).

Baker, though, didn't do any more tinkering than that. Good thing. Foxx eventually grew into the second-greatest slugger of baseball's pre-World War II era; when "The Beast" retired, only Babe Ruth had more career home runs than his 534.

What Baker almost did, though, was steer Foxx to the New York Yankees. With the Yankees visiting Philadelphia midway through the season, Baker paid a visit to the team from which he'd retired just two years earlier. Manager Miller Huggins, however, told Baker that had no interest in a 16-year-old -- this losing the chance to plug Foxx into a lineup that still featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. (Imagine Foxx with the 1927 Yankees. Frightening.)

When Huggins passed, Baker went to see Philadelphia manager Connie Mack -- the manager for whom he'd played during the first half of his career. Mack sent a scout to follow Baker's team (and Foxx) for two weeks; when the reports came back positive, the Athletics purchased the rights to Foxx for $2,000.

Five years later, Foxx hit 33 home runs and drove in 100 runs as a 21-year-old first baseman. Three years after that, he won his first MVP award -- and a year later, he won another one.

Mack eventually had to cash in on his investment; he dismantled his A's in the aftermath of the Great Depression, selling Foxx to the Red Sox for $150,000.

Foxx hit 41 home runs and drove in 143 runs in 1936, his first season with the Red Sox. Two years later, he hit .349with 50 home runs and an American League record 175 RBIas the Red Sox won 88 games, their highest total since 1917. (If not for Hank Greenberg's 58 home runs, Foxx would have won the Triple Crown.)

A year after that, playing with rookie Ted Williams, Foxx hit .360 with 35 home runs and drove in 105 runs as the Red Sox won 89 games and again finished second. Even though he played just 6 1/2 seasons with the Red Sox, he still ranks ninth in franchise history in home runs (222) and ranks second to Ted Williams in on-base percentage (.429) and slugging percentage (.605).

And just think: He could have been a Yankee.

Coming up next: Pedro or Cy?

Lowrie undergoes surgical procedure containing many big words

Shortstop Jed Lowrie underwent successful surgery on his left wrist in Arizona today and could start swinging a bat again in about six weeks.

"I don't want to get too specific because I can't (because of medical privacy laws)," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said without a hint of irony in his voice. "But I'll give you my version."

Francona then read from a slip of paper in his hand -- and still needed a little help to get through the whole explanation:

* Doctors repaired the scapholunate ligament, the main ligament binding the scaphoid bone to the lunate bone in the lower wrist, the two bones in the wrist closer to the forearm than to the hand. (As if you didn't know that.)
* Doctors also excised the distal end of the ulna styloid in the wrist. No one in the room had any idea what that meant. Good thing he didn't get too specific.

"The big good news for us is that there's no damage to the TFCC (triangular fibrocartilage complex, which is to the wrist what the meniscus is to the knee), which is a potential problem," Francona said. "Everything that was done today puts him right on track to start swinging a bat at six weeks. ...

"Those are some big names that can be explained to you better with medical people. But I think it's exactly what they thought and what they hoped wouldn't be, so that's good news."

***

Outfielder Rocco Baldelli, who tweaked his hamstring going to third on an error on Monday, was placed on the disabled list this afternoon after a conversation with Francona and the team's medical staff.

Jeff Bailey was recalled from Pawtucket to replace Baldelli.

The move adds another righthanded bat but doesn't help much with depth in the outfield; Bailey, like Chris Carter, is a first baseman first and an outfielder second and has virtually no experience playing center field. J.D. Drew, it appears, is the backup center fielder and would move over if anything happened to Jacoby Ellsbury.

Bay just keeps walking

Jason Bay has hit 30 home runs three times in his big-league career. He's driven in 100 runs three times in his big-league career. He's slugged at least .500 in every year but one since his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2004.

But if opposing pitchers don't want to pitch to him, that's just fine with his manager.

"If guys don't leave the strike zone, we're OK," Terry Francona said. "We don't need them to do that. We don't want them to do that. If we take our walks and drive up pitch counts, more often than not, the hits also come with it. They come in tandem."

Bay has walked an American League-best 15 times so far this season; he walked five times in four games against Baltimore, including twice on Monday. But he's also hit three home runs and 10 RBI thus far, totals matched only by the smoking-hot Kevin Youkilis.

"I'm just trying to have good at-bats, and that's the result," Bay said. "I enjoy walking. Some guys think of it as a negative thing, but I like it. Getting on base is part of my game, and that's part of it. I don't think you can consciously go up there being like, 'I'm going to walk' or 'I want to walk,' but when you have good at-bats, if you walk, hey, you take your base -- and we've got enough guys behind me that I'll take my chances."

(Among those guys: Third baseman Mike Lowell, who leds the Red Sox and ranks sixth in the American League with 13 RBI so far this season.)

Taking walks isn't a new concept for Bay; he walked 95 times with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2005 and 102 times in 2006. He went through a couple of stretches similar to this one -- he drew 19 walks in a 16-game stretch in July and August -- but didn't think much of it then, either.

"I was never up there thinking, 'Oh, they're trying to pitch around me,'" he said. "You're going up there and trying to have a good at-bat. I never really noticed, never really saw people blatantly trying to pitch around me. There are certain situations when it's very, very obvious, and I never really ran into that. Maybe I'm naive, but maybe it didn't happen. I don't know. But I never really felt like I was in a situation where I was constantly being pitched around. I never felt like that."

Good game, Big Papi -- now keep it up

Everything's OK now, right?

David Ortiz went 2-for-4 with a double, a triple and two RBI against the Orioles on Monday. His batting average jumped from .170 to .196, its highest point in exactly a week. His slugging percentage jumped from .191 to .275, its highest point in almost two weeks.

Even better, with the way he hit the ball the other way with authority, he showed plenty of signs that he's emerging from the slump in which he was mired for the season's first 12 games.

Everything's OK now, right?

Well, um, not necessarily. A few reasons why:

1. It was one game.
Everything the Red Sox kept saying about Ortiz's slow start can be turned on its head to explain why you can't get too excited about a 2-for-4 game.

"It's 12 games," hitting coach Dave Magadan said. "We play 162 games. Obviously, you don't want anybody to struggle. But for me, a bad start is 120 at-bats or 150 at-bats and not 40 at-bats. When you can change your season around in two games, your batting average and all those things, it's not a start. It takes some time."

"It's a long year," second baseman Dustin Pedroia said. "He's got 600 more at-bats left. The season's not 50 at-bats."

Very true. But while it's premature to make any "Ortiz is finished!" pronouncements after 12 or 13 games, it's also premature to make any "Ortiz is back!" pronouncements after one 2-for-4 afternoon.

2. It was Mark Hendrickson.
Yes, Hendrickson is a lefty. Yes, Ortiz was hitting .211 off the guy in his career coming into the game. (That was a sample size of 19 at-bats, so take it for what it's worth.)

But Hendrickson wasn't throwing the high, hard stuff with which David Ortiz has had trouble this year. In the first inning, Hendrickson missed the strike zone twice before grooving a "fastball" at 87 miles an hour. Ortiz bounced it off the Green Monster.

That's not unusual. Ortiz has 10 hits this season; two of those have come on curveballs, and eight have come on fastballs. Here's how those fastballs break down:

86-89 mph: 4 hits (including Monday's double, 87)
90-93 mph: 4 hits (including Monday's triple, 91)
94-98 mph: 0 hits

In other words -- Ortiz's words, in fact -- he's hitting pitches any major leaguer should hit if he wants to stay in the major leagues.

"If you as a hitter slow down with 88 miles an hour, that means you've got to go," he said. "But it's crazy how you can, after you get beat by 88, come and hit 94. That means it's not that youv'e got to go; it means you've got to pull yourself together to keep working."

That may be true. It's tough to know. He hasn't hit a pitch clocked at 94 yet this season.

3. It stayed in the ballpark
Home runs, of course, are the ultimate small sample size. But the fact that Jason Varitek has gone deep three times has to be encouraging; no matter what your batting average is, you've still got some bat speed left if you can hit three home runs in the span of a couple of weeks. It's so encouraging, in fact, that Varitek's performance at the plate is attracting exactly zero attention so far this season.

Ortiz, on the other hand, still has yet to go deep.

Even with his slow starts in previous years, he found a way to go deep at least once or twice in the season's opening week. The only times he's gone 40 at-bats without a home run to open the season, in fact, were in 2003 (when he was breaking in with the Red Sox and only playing part-time) and in 2000 (when he was breaking in with the Twins and only playing part-time).

4. But it's still too early to tell
We can examine the pitches and the at-bats and the numbers all we want. Nothing this early is going to tell us if Ortiz still can be productive as a No. 3 hitter for a World Series-caliber team.

Check back around Memorial Day. We -- and Terry Francona -- ought to have a pretty good idea at that point whether Ortiz still is a guy who can anchor the middle of the Red Sox lineup.

Masterson just happy doing what he's doing

He sat at the podium with a goofy grin on his face and talked about hanging out and enjoying life and cheering for his buddies, looking every bit the 23-year-old less than three years out of college.

Baseball is a very serious business. Don't tell Justin Masterson that, though. Maybe it's better if he doesn't know.

"Masterson went out and not only threw the ball well early but maintained it through the entire 84 pitches, which is not that easy to do," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "His velocity -- and maybe more important than velocity but the life on his fastball -- and the depth on his breaking ball was tremendous from start to end. He did a great job today."

Masterson lasted 5 1/3 innings in his first start of the season, a start he made in something of an emergency role thanks to the "arm fatigue" that sidelined Daisuke Matsuzaka. The 6-foot-6 sinkerballer allowed four hits (all on offspeed pitches) and struck out three (one on a fastball, one on a slider and one on a sinker). His fastball touched 96 miles an hour in the first inning, and he didn't allow a hit out of the infield until there were two outs in the fourth inning.

Thanks to the success he had, no one was speculating about the radar gun being a little friendlier than normal.

"More often than not, the hitters will tell you," Francona said. "If that's the case, he was throwing well. We looked at each other a couple of times. He hit 96 a couple of times; I've never seen that."

You could chalk up Masterson's goofy grin to his great day.

That goofy grin, though, epitomizes what allows him to be such an effective pitcher either as a starter or a reliever. He doesn't care what he's doing. He just wants to pitch.

"Just give me the ball and let me pitch," he said. "I don't care what when it is -- whatever way I'm able to help the team. I'm hoping Dice-K gets back here as fast as he can. I don't know when I'm pitching next or what's going on. I'm fine with that and just trying to take the good things and continue to move on."

Hold on. Hold on. He really doesn't know when and in what role he's next pitching? He's really fine with that?

"Not whatsoever," he said with another big smile. "I'm just going to hang out and see what happens."

That's right: Not only is he being jerked from the bullpen to the rotation and (presumably) back again, he doesn't have any idea which role the Red Sox will have him fill next. The smart money is on him making his next start on Sunday night against the Yankees; Daisuke Matsuzaka will start throwing again on Tuesday, but it would seem foolhardy for the Red Sox to rush him back out to the mound after just a week off.

It's fair to expect an outing pretty similar to this one. Masterson has a great fastball and a couple of sharp breaking pitches; he's not going to throw eight shutout innings, but he's going to give the Red Sox a quality outing.

"I wanted to keep the intensity I had coming out of the bullpen when it seemed like my velocity kind of elevated," he said, "and really keep that intensity coming into my start. I was really happy I was able to do that today."

And how does he do that?

"I don't know," he said, laughing.

Then he got serious -- for a second.

"There's a point when you're out there throwing and you throw a pitch and the body wants to slow down a little bit, but you mentally have to tell yourself, 'Hey, I've got to throw these pitches. Once you get past that one, you're fine and you're good to go."

As long as Masterson is taking the ball, the Red Sox, like Masterson and Taco Bell's Crunchwrap Supreme, should be good to go.

Ortiz has a double and a triple today

So much for all that worry.

Big Papi is back!

(Maybe.)

Lugo returns, likely bound for Pawtucket

Nick Green has performed admirably in his stint as starting shortstop, hitting .286 and showing off a pretty impressive throwing arm at short.

But Terry Francona had to be happy to see Julio Lugo show his face in the Fenway Park locker room on Monday morning. The veteran shortstop did some running exercises and some throwing with Red Sox coaches and team doctors; barring a setback, he'll report to Triple-A Pawtucket in time to play in tomorrow's game against Rochester.

The biggest issue now, Francona said, is making sure Lugo doesn't push himself too hard in his eagerness to get back.

"He's only played shortstop for five innings," the manager said. "There's got to be a progression even when a guy's not really coming off an injury -- and then when you add a knee injury to it, there's going to need to be a progression to build up. If you send a guy out there five days in a row, nine innings a shot, there's going to be some swelling. That's inevitable."

Lugo, for his part, sounded ready to go.

"I feel much better," he said. "I've got some mobility now. I don't have that much pain now. I feel good."

The shortstop pronounced himself at "80 percent" but said he doesn't know how long he'll stay with the PawSox before he's ready to report back to Boston. He said he only really feels any pain when he has to bend down or squat down and shift to the side -- something that does occasionally happen in the field. Batting and running, though, he's pain-free.

"I just need to play, get my ready to play every day," he said. "It's just a matter of playing a couple of games and getting some swings and seeing some pitches. I'll be fine."

Francona, too, preaches optimism with Ortiz

Like hitting coach Dave Magadan on Sunday, Red Sox manager Terry Francona today preached patience with struggling superstar David Ortiz.

"Right now, you're seeing a guy that's in-between -- the fastballs are getting by him, and he's ahead of the breaking ball," he said. "Hitting can be intricate when it's going bad, and it can be easy when it's going good -- or simplified. You hear every hitter, just about, when they're going well, they'll tell you the same thing: 'Boy, I'm just seeing the ball good.' They don't think about a whole lot else.

"When you're not going good, you see where the umpire is behind the pitcher, you see the rosin bag, you see the scoreboard, you see the camera. You see everything but the ball. Everything looks fast. Once you get to a position where you hit the ball in a good position and you square it up, everything seems to slow down. I don't know why exactly that is. We've all been through it, and it can be awful -- and it can be really good. Just as awful (as it is), it can get that good. That's what the uniqueness of hitting is: Guys get to their level. They just don't always do it in the most consistent manner."

Big Papi remains in the lineup today to face 6-foot-10 lefty Mark Hendrickson, a pitcher with an arsenal of off-speed pitches and a fastball that isn't going to hit 90 miles an hour very often. Big lefties and breaking balls both can give Ortiz trouble; he's a .211 career hitter against Hendrickson and has as many strikeouts (four) as hits.

"I actually think that'll be good for him because it'll force him to really stay on the ball," Francona said. "You hear lefties say all the time that if you cheat a little bit, you don't just make an out -- they can embarrass you. It'll be really good to make David stay on the ball. That doesn't mean he's going to 4-for-4, but I do think that'll be good for him."

A year ago, 12 games into the season, Ortiz was hitting .070 and slugging .140; he had three hits (including a home run) in 43 at-bats and had struck out 10 times.

Over his next eight games, though, including the April 21 Patriots' Day game, Ortiz went 11-for-36 (.306) with two doubles and a grand-slam home run to go along with 12 RBI.

"This game is very mental," Ortiz said then in reaction to a day off given him by Francona. "Your mind takes over. I can tell you myself, I know that in my situation, my mind works more than everything else because it's been like that my whole career. I think, mentally, the percentage is more of what you use in the game than physically.

"This game, after you get prepared physically, you let the mind take over. Sometimes when you're fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, this is the time when the mind gets some time off and regroups and goes back to normal. If you just keep on hitting and hitting and hitting, it takes longer for you to recover or whatever. I guess that's why managers make those kinds of decisions with their players. You can see the results later on."

And a year before that, in 2007, Ortiz was 6-for-29 (.207) through eight games. He then went 12-for-31 with four home runs and 13 RBI in his next eight games. In his career, Ortiz has a .259 batting average and a .350 on-base percentage in April, his worst numbers of any month.

Heck, Carlos Delgado was hitting .186 with a .263 slugging percentage and 18 strikeouts in his first 23 games; he was 36 years old and, it seemed, washed up. He hit .285 and slugged .563 the rest of the way.

The precedent is there. At a certain point, though, age catches up with every player. Many have speculated that when a fastball hitter swinging and missing at 87-mile-an-hour fastball, his time might be nearing.

But Francona abruptly dismissed any suggestion that Ortiz is close to finished.

"You would be ahead of me on that one," he said to his questioner. "I don't even know how to answer that because I think he's got so much more offense left in him. He's just having a tough time right now."

Magadan preaches optimism with Ortiz

David Ortiz had himself another 0-fer on Sunday, going 0-for-4 and striking out twice to drop his batting average to .170 for the season. He's 8-for-47 with just one extra-base hit and 14 strikeouts in 12 games.

Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan, though, preached patience and optimism in a conversation with reporters in the Fenway Park locker room. Among the highlights:

What is he doing at the plate that's causing him to struggle?
"I don't care who you are: David or Manny or Nick Green or Dustin Pedroia. All those guys have things they need to do to put good swings on the ball. As a major-league hitting coach, you're not here teaching guys how to hit. You're here noticing when guys get away from what they do well at the plate. That's really what my job is. Right now, (Ortiz) is not doing the things that make him a very good hitter. The key is to nip it in the bud and not make it be a 100-at-bat span. You want to make it be a 15-to-20-at-bat span.

"I know, with you guys, it's, 'Oh, he's hitting a buck-seventy or a buck-sixty.' It's 12 games. We play 162 games. Obviously, you don't want anybody to struggle. But for me, a bad start is 120 at-bats or 150 at-bats and not 40 at-bats. When you can change your season around in two games, your batting average and all those things, it's not a start. It takes some time. He felt good about the changes he made yesterday, and for me, it's just a matter of time and sticking with it."

Did the WBC or the long spring training have any impact on his swing?
"No, because it's something he's done since I've been here. He's gone through periods where he has done what he's doing now. The WBC, the way it affected us is my day-to-day work with him. You hope to be there on an everyday basis so he doesn't fall into that."

When he misses an 87- or 88-mile-an-hour fastball, is that not as bad as it might look to us? Could he just be off by a little bit?
"That's all it takes. When you're a little bit late getting to your load or getting to the spot where you need to put a swing on the ball, when you're late, 87 is like 97. When he gets to that point when he's on time and he's in a good position to put a swing on the ball at the right time when the ball's in the right location, 97 is going to seem like 87."

How are his spirits now? Is he taking it hard?
"He gets frustrated just like anybody else, but he's still very positive. He has the right attitude that it's only going to be a matter of time. We all feel that way. He realizes that he's a very important part of our offense. I'm sure, to a certain extent, he gets frustrated with the fact that he's not hitting the way he feels like he should be hitting, but we all feel like it's just a matter of time."

Is it encouraging that he's still seeing as many pitches (a team-best 4.59 per at-bat even before a nine-pitch at-bat on Sunday) as he's seeing?
"Early on, he wasn't. Early on, at the beginning of the season, he was a little impatient and probably swinging at pitches that he would normally not swing at. That comes with getting into the flow of the season, the flow of the at-bats, getting your four or five at-bats a game -- unlike spring training, when you're getting two or three at-bats a game and you face a different pitcher every at-bat. With the flow of the season and the routine of the season, everything will fall into place for him.

"He's no different from anybody else. He's had a lot of success as a major-league hitter, but you still get frustrated. You still get impatient. You feel like, 'God, I want to jump on that first pitch,' and then it ends up being a little out of the zone or a changeup you end up putting in play. His strength is seeing pitches and waiting for that pitch he can drive."

Do you want him to try to go the other way at all?
"You've got to be careful, like with anybody; you don't want him to be thinking, 'I want to hit a ball off the (left-field) wall' because right now, they're busting him up and in with hard stuff and soft stuff down and away, back door. I don't want him to start thinking, 'Jeez, I want to start trying to hit the ball over there' because he needs to get on those pitches that are on the inner half. He just needs to hit the ball where it's pitched.

"When he's on time and he's ready to hit when the ball is in the zone, everything falls into place. When you're not ready to hit, you're going to battle to get the bat head to the ball. You'll see it with anybody -- him, J.D. Drew, whoever. When you're late getting to that spot, you're going to do things to get the bat head on the ball. You're going to fall back; you're going to lunge for balls that are off-speed. You lose your posture at the plate. When he's good, when he's squaring up on the ball, he looks like every pitch is right down the middle because he's on time and he gets to that spot and he does everything he's supposed to be doing. When he's not on time, he ends up losing his posture and he's lunging or he's backing up on balls to try to get to them."

Fun with numbers: Strikes and balls

54 percent.

Name the Red Sox leader in walks right at this moment. Actually, scratch that. Name the American League's leader in walks right at this moment. It's the same guy.

It's not Kevin Youkilis. It's not J.D. Drew. Those two combined, in fact, have drawn 11 walks so far this season.

Jason Bay, by himself, has drawn 13 walks so far this season.

What's really interesting, though, is the way he's drawn those walks. He's not getting deep in the count all the time, fouling off pitches, grinding out at-bats. Only one of his walks this season, in fact, required more than six pitches -- and the rest of the time, he's not seeing all that many pitches in the strike zone.

Through 11 games this season, Bay has been thrown strikes on 54 percent of the pitches thrown to him -- lowest on the team. The major league average so far is 61 percent. No one in the American League East, in fact, has seen fewer than 54 percent.

Pitchers just have no desire to give the Red Sox left fielder anything to hit.

(In case you're wondering: Manny Ramirez has a National League-leading 14 walks and has seen strikes on 52 percent of his pitches, by far the fewest on his team. But you probably figured that would be the case.)

***

Bonus Fun With Numbers: 64 percent.

Jacoby Ellsbury insisted this spring that he needs to be less patient at the plate because pitchers don't want to walk him and give him a chance to steal bases. So far, he's been right.

No Red Sox player has seen more than Ellsbury's 64 percent.

And when he's swinging, he's not missing -- he's made contact on 95 percent of the pitches he's swung at. He just hasn't yet straightened it out (30 percent of his strikes are on foul balls) or gotten his hits to fall (he's hitting .244 on balls put in play).

Beckett to serve five-game suspension

Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett will serve a five-game suspension starting today as punishment for a pitch he threw near the head of Los Angeles outfielder Bobby Abreu. Beckett had appealed the suspension but will drop the appeal as part of a negotiation that shaved one game off the ban.

He'll next pitch on Saturday against the Yankees.

"I don't think the organization felt like it was ever going to get lessened more than five," manager Terry Francona said. "Regardless of how we feel about what happened, once the decision was made to overturn the umpires, looking at past history and how the league feels about it, regardless of what kind of case Josh stated, I don't think they'd go below five because they want you to miss a start."

As it turns out, he won't even miss a start.

Beckett's turn in the rotation next would have come up on Friday; instead, Jon Lester will make that start on normal rest thanks to an off-day on Thursday. Beckett then will pitch on six days' rest on Saturday, and Justin Masterson presumably will pitch the Sunday night game on ESPN.

Because the Red Sox could juggle things to avoid costing Beckett a start, it made sense to drop the appeal and start the countdown.

That, though, didn't mean it sat well with the ace.

"I don't support this at all," he said. "If it was up to me, we would have gone through this whole process. It could have eventually been a lot worse if we had gone through with the whole thing. Everybody has got to answer to somebody. When your boss tells you to do something, you do what's best for the team. ...

"I truly believe I don't deserve one game. It's unfortunate. Other people don't always see it the same way you see it."

Francona also made sure to emphasize that the acceptance of the suspension wasn't any type of admission of guilt on the part of Beckett.

"I don't think he ever remotely felt like he did anything on purpose," he said. "I probably need to say that. It's still probably for the betterment of the ballclub to not take a chance and have a hearing come up in the middle of (the rotation) where you really have a tough time answering the bell. ...

"He's doing this for the ballclub because he understands the situation the ballclub could be in. But he didn't do it on purpose, and he's very adamant about that."

Asked and answered: Kevin Youkilis

Here's what he's done so far this year:
* A .467 batting average
* A .529 on-base percentage
* A .778 slugging percentage
* Three home runs
* Five doubles
* Nine runs batted in
* Eleven runs scored
* Four hits, including a single, double and home run, on Saturday

Wow.

Four hits again tonight. What is it that's clicking for you?
"I've just been fortunate. I've gotten a couple of good pitches to hit and gotten good results. A lot of times, you base it on results -- well, in spring training, I couldn't get a hit, but I was hitting the ball good. I just didn't have any results. For me, right now, I'm having good results, and I've got to keep having good at-bats. If you have good at-bats, you give yourself a good chance to get hits."

Did you do anything different this off-season to let you hit the ground running like this?
"Nope. Same old stuff. I'm just going out and doing the same routine. I don't change anything. I'm going through the same routine I've always gone through. It's nothing different. I'm just trying to have good at-bats."

Did the World Baseball Classic help in terms of hitting intense pitching right away?
"I don't think that had anything to do with it because I had four days off, stuff like that. Right now, I'm just hitting the ball good and I've got to keep going up there and having good at-bats throughout the whole year and, hopefully, it turns out for the good."

With that double (in the eighth inning), you were a triple short of the cycle, did that cross your mind?
"When I was running? No. I was just trying to get to second base. I didn't know where the ball was because right off the bat, you've just got to run hard. You never know where the ball is, and you've just got to try to get to second base. I was just watching David (Ortiz) to see what he did. It's not a big deal for me. It's just getting on base and trying to score runs. If that stuff happens, a lot of times, you don't even know it. You're just going up there and trying to have good at-bats."

Did anyone mention hitting for the cycle to you?
"No, no one's mentioned it. For me, I'd rather hit another home run than a triple."

You mean you didn't yell at David, 'I would have had the cycle if you weren't in the way'?
"Nah, no chance. You can't really get a triple to left -- there'd be a lot of people diving and getting hurt. That'd be the only way. It's pretty hard to get a triple to left. But I don't really think about that stuff. I'm just going up there and trying to get hits. The cycle is nothing I've ever thought about doing in my life; I just want to get as many hits as possible. I'll take four doubles or a home run and single, double, triple."

Terry Francona said he feels like you're still getting better. Do you feel that way?
"I hope. I hope I'm not getting worse. I hope I get better as my career goes on and I can end my career on a high note someday, but at some point, there's going to be a struggle. Hitting's not easy. (On Friday) I didn't hit the ball well and didn't have a good day, but you bounce back and you've got to keep going. Everyone goes through a little bit of a slump. You just try to get out of it as soon as possible."

A glimmer of hope for Ortiz

A hit or two, all by itself, doesn't necessarily indicate a player is coming out of a slump. When you hit .100, after all, you're still going to get a hit every 10 at-bats.

But there's still a glimmer of hope you can draw from the two hits David Ortiz collected on Saturday.

For all the trouble Big Papi is having against fastballs this year, he had more trouble last year against breaking pitches. According to Inside Edge, Inc., stats, he hit .283 on fastballs a year ago but just .191 on curves and .130 on sliders. Against righthanded pitchers, he hit .306 against fastballs, .190 against curves and .105 against sliders.

Both of Big Papi's hits against righty Adam Eaton on Saturday came on breaking balls. He waited back on a 74-mile-an-hour curve on the outside corner in the third inning and hit a line drive to left field. The very next inning, he pounced on a curveball over the middle of the plate and yanked it over the overshift in the infield for another base hit.

"We'll take anything we can get," manager Terry Francona said. "But even throwing a hit (to left field), that makes you feel better -- and then he goes after that one and hits a line drive to right field. I do think that helps."

But Francona didn't want to read too much into the fact that his designated hitter had collected both of his hits on breaking balls.

"We'd be starting to get a little bit involved there," he said. "You'd have to ask David if, on a particular at-bat, he's sitting on a particular pitch. I certainly wouldn't tell him -- and with two strikes, guys are mostly just looking for the ball."

(The single to left field came on an 0-2 count; the single to right field came on an 0-1 count.)

This reporter didn't have a chance to ask. Ortiz was showered and dressed and heading out of the locker room just as reporters made it downstairs from the session with Francona. But his teammates didn't hesitatate to voice confidence on his behalf.

"David, he's going to come around," first baseman Kevin Youkilis said. "He's just started off slow, and it looks a lot worse because it's the beginning of the season. If this was August, no one would probably even pay attention. The big thing is that we've got a long way to go, and he's going to be a big part of this team. He's got to keep going out and plugging away, and he'll be fine."

Said catcher Jason Varitek, "David's going to hit. It's just a matter of time."

Big Papi still can't seem to catch up with the hard stuff. Against Jeremy Guthrie on Friday, he struck out on a 94-mile-an-hour fastball up and in back in the first inning; he popped to third in the fifth inning on virtually the same pitch. When reliever Matt Albers threw him a 94-mile-an-hour fastball right over the middle of the plate in the seventh inning, all he could do was foul it off.

But, as noted in this space on Saturday, even that has its advantages.

No Red Sox player has seen more pitches per plate appearance (4.59) than Ortiz -- even though he's seen more strikes (61 percent) than anyone else who hits in the heart of the order. A year ago, only J.D. Drew saw more pitches per plate appearance (4.16) than Ortiz (4.03).

And it took Eaton seven pitches to strike Ortiz out in the first inning on Saturday.

Clearly, anyone would rather get singles than strike out. But if you're going to have a guy in the heart of your order who's averaging a whiff a game, as the Red Sox seem determined to do, at least he's giving everyone else a chance to see what the opposing pitcher's got -- especially Kevin Youkilis, waiting in the on-deck circle with perhaps the hottest bat in the American League.

After early struggle, Red Sox now cruising

The sign on the door reads "TEAM PERSONNEL ONLY." Still, though, as Theo Epstein stuck his key into the lock and started to jiggle it around, the door didn't seem to recognize that he's as team personnel as it gets. It wouldn't budge.

Epstein started to laugh and tugged on the keys for a few more seconds. Still nothing.

"This is getting embarrassing for you," said one reporter who had just taken a seat in the second-floor interview room, the very room Epstein was trying to escape, hinting that maybe the boy-wonder general manager ought to give up and go around.

"No, now, it's me against the door," Epstein said.

He kept fighting for a few more seconds.

A loud click sounded as the key finally turned.

"Knockout," he said, and pushed his way through.

Metaphor much?

After the Red Sox stumbled to a 2-6 start and tumbled into last place in the American League East, it seemed like they were going nowhere fast -- much like their general manager late Saturday night.

All of a sudden, though, something has clicked.

Knockout.

The bats are ablaze: Kevin Youkilis had four hits on Saturday, including a double and a home run, to raise his batting average to .467. J.D. Drew reached base five times on Friday and had a double Saturday. Jason Bay hit a three-run home run on Friday and drove in a run Saturday. Even David Ortiz collected a pair of hits in Saturday's win -- he stayed back on a pair of breaking pitches, lining one to left field and looping one over the shift and into right field.

The bullpen is untouchable: In the 19 2/3 innings that Terry Francona has employed his bullpen since Tuesday night, the group has surrendered just one run -- the game-winning run in extra innings against the A's. Among the stars:

* Manny Delcarmen: 4 1/3 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 5 K
* Hideki Okajima: 3 2/3 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 5 K
* Ramon Ramirez: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 K
* Jonathan Papelbon: 3 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 1 K

Okajima, who got off to a rough start in the season's first week, pitched a sensational seventh inning; he whiffed Adam Jones on a fastball on the inside corner and whiffed Nick Markakis on a fastball over the middle of the plate before getting Aubrey Huff to pop to first base on a splitter.

"Even in all those 19 innings, we haven't overused anybody and we're still able to get some zeroes up there," Francona said. "When we talked before the season started, we hoped our bullpen would be a strong suit.

Papelbon had to work in the ninth inning on Saturday; a slap single from Brian Roberts and a fastball that hit Jones in the shoulder put runners on first and second with one out for the frighteningly dangerous Markakis.

Papelbon got two quick strikes on the Orioles' young slugger before he missed with a fastball down and away, missed with a splitter in the dirt and missed with a fastball up and in before he induced a fly ball to right with another fastball up and in.

"He wasn't commanding as well as he normally does, but the game also dictates that you don't just throw the ball over the middle of the plate -- especially with guys like Markakis," Francona said. "Sometimes you have to pitch off the plate to eliminate an extra-base hit. It ended up being a tough inning for him, but he came through it."

The Red Sox haven't even needed great outings from their starting pitchers -- save for Tim Wakefield, of course, who saved everyone's bacon with a near no-hitter in Oakland. Brad Penny gave up seven runs in the second inning on Friday, and Josh Beckett nearly gave a six-run lead back on Saturday.

No matter.

The Red Sox have won three in a row -- yes, it counts as a winning streak now -- and look as good now as they looked bad a few days ago.

The mission now will be to keep the momentum rolling on Sunday against newcomer Koji Uehara.

"I hesitate to say (that the bats are coming around)," Francona said, "because when you do, the next day's starter does something you don't want him to. But we did some good things early, put pressure on them, made (Baltimore starting pitcher Chad) Eaton work. Even a couple of times when we didn't score, like Jason Bay's swing in the eighth there, we had a chance to spread it out."

Fun with numbers: BAPIP

.303
That's the American League average for BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play). The idea behind this stat is that everyone goes through stretches when everything off their bat goes straight to a fielder, and everyone goes through stretches when everything off their bat falls for a hit somewhere.

If a hitter's BAPIP is high, it means his ground balls are finding holes, his line drives are finding holes and his fly balls are finding holes. He's due for a step back. If a hitter's BAPIP is low, it means everything he's hitting is going straight to a fielder -- and he's due for some of those hits to start falling.

(As an example: In the second inning on Saturday, Mike Lowell ripped a line drive to left field with runners on second and third -- and it went straight to Felix Pie. Seven or eight times out of 10, a line drive hit that hard is going to get those runs home.)

Here are the BAPIP numbers for a few notable Red Sox hitters (through Friday):

* Kevin Youkilis: .469
You thought maybe he was going to hit .500 all season? You thought maybe it was all skill with no luck involved?

* Jason Bay: .333
It's higher than average, sure, but it's not so high that he can't keep hitting the way he's been hitting.

* Jacoby Ellsbury: .250
* Dustin Pedroia: .231
The top two in the Red Sox order have scuffled thus far; neither has a batting average above .235. But Pedroia has smoked some hits that defenders have made great plays on, and Ellsbury is a guy who should tend to have a high BAPIP because his speed will help him beat ouf some ground balls. Seeing low BAPIP numbers for both is a good sign -- it means their early-season slumps can be attributed more to bad luck than anything else.

* Mike Lowell: .226
The Red Sox are optimistic that their third baseman can bounce back from offseason hip surgery. He's hitting just .237 thus far, but a low BAPIP means he might be due for a couple of his line drives to fall.

* David Ortiz: .207
* Jason Varitek: .174
Here's the problem with BAPIP, though: It doesn't account for how hard you hit the ball. Some line drives into the outfield are going to get caught; some are going to fall for singles and doubles. But when you're hitting weak ground balls and pop-ups -- as both Varitek and Ortiz have been prone to do -- you're going to see fewer of your balls in play land for hits.

***

Fun With Numbers Bonus for all of those calling for Ortiz to be moved down in the batting order:

No, Big Papi isn't hitting the ball. He's off to a miserable start in terms of his results at the plate. But he's seeing 4.72 pitches per plate appearance thus far, by far the best total on the team. Part of that has to do with the fact that he's fouling more pitches off; that's what decreased bat speed will do to you.

But when he sees that many pitches every time he steps to the plate -- and he saw seven pitches en route to striking out in Saturday's first inning -- he's being at least a little bit productive.

Surgery not inevitable for Lowrie

Shortstop Jed Lowrie told reporters yesterday he's prepared to undergo season-ending surgery if it's the best way to put his nagging wrist injury behind him for good.

His manager, though, said today that the 25-year-old might have been spoken out of turn.

"He laid it out there," Francona said with a wry smile. "He may be getting a little bit ahead of himself. We'll see where we're at. ... Somebody asked him a question and he blurted out the good, the bad and the ugly. We're a little more comfortable having him looked at again and then going from there."

Lowrie, who went 1-for-18 to start the season, caught an evening flight to Arizona on Saturday to meet with a doctor who previously has worked with Dustin Pedroia and Jason Bay.

"None of us thought it could do any harm," Francona said. "There's a lot of questions that have arisen, and getting one more opinion, we thought was a good thing. The more information, the better. That's how we view it, and I think Jed is comfortable with that."

Rally epitomizes Drew's value

Walks are boring. J.D. Drew is, if you ask any Red Sox fan, boring.

Even the Red Sox's rally from seven runs down on Friday night was, actually, fairly boring. It didn't happen in the late innings. It didn't happen with just one or two big hits. The go-ahead runs were across the plate before "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," let alone "Sweet Caroline."

It actually fits pretty nicely.

"It was, 'Hey, we won the game,' and at the end, it was like, 'Hey, no big deal,'" left fielder Jason Bay said. "It was early enough that we came back when it wasn't that dramatic. It was early in the game, a couple of runs here and there: 'OK, now we're down by three.' 'OK, now we have a tie game.' Once it was 8-5, it was almost like it was a regular game, not remembering we were down seven at one point."

And how did it all start?

Bay's two-run home run got the Fenway Park crowd believing again. Even before that, though, it was a four-pitch walk -- the most boring play in baseball -- drawn by Drew that started the shift of momentum back toward the first-base dugout.

It was the first of the five times Drew would get on base on Friday. He walked three times, tripled, homered and scored three runs.

"He's a huge part of our offense," said Bay, who gets to hit behind Drew on a nightly basis. "When he's at his best, that's what he does. Everyone knows he's an on-base machine when he's going well. ... I don't think it's any coincidence that a guy like him gets on a bunch of times and (Dustin Pedroia) gets some hits and, all of a sudden, we score a bunch of runs."

Drew led the Red Sox in on-base percentage and, even with Kevin Youkilis hitting in front of him, might be the most patient hitter the Red Sox have. He saw 4.16 pitches per plate appearance a year ago, well ahead of David Ortiz (4.03) and Youkilis (4.02).

And when Jeremy Guthrie ignored the seven-run lead the Orioles had handed him and started Drew off with four pitches out of the strike zone, the right fielder was more than willing to oblige. (The first of those pitches appeared to be in the strike zone, but when you take pitches, you give the umpire a chance to help you out.)

That's not something just anyone can do when facing such a steep deficit.

"It's not easy," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "It's very easy to get frustrated and swing at pitches -- especially Guthrie. He's good, and we've seen him real good. That's not easy to do. I was proud of them for that. We made him work hard, and that's not easy to do when you're down. If you give away maybe even one inning, you end up showing a good effort but coming up short."

Bay followed by taking two pitches -- one ball and one strike -- before whacking a hanging slider into the bullpen to get the Red Sox on the scoreboard.

And the next time Drew came up, Guthrie didn't dare miss with any of his pitches. He threw a slider up in the zone that Drew took for a strike, and he then threw a fastball even more up in the zone that Drew hit into the bullpen for a solo home run.

Two innings later, he went after the first pitch he saw -- a fastball over the middle of the plate -- and tripled off the center-field fence.

"He took some really good swings," Francona said. "He got pitches he could handle and didn't chase out of the zone, and he hit them with authority."

Taking really good swings is a fantastic thing. You can't score runs without taking really good swings. But the fact that Drew is willing to take a pitch and is willing to take a walk means that he's going to get pitches that are far, far easier to hit when he does decide to swing.

Penny: "I felt unbelievable"

If you expected Brad Penny to be upset after getting shelled for seven runs in the second inning on Friday, well, be prepared for a bit of a surprise.

"I felt great," he said. "I haven't had that kind of stuff in a while."

Say what now?

OK, sure, Penny hit 96 on the radar gun and showed off a sharp breaking ball. Even the grand slam Nick Markakis hit came on a curveball the right fielder almost had to dig out of the dirt.

"It was a good pitch," he said. "He went down and got it. I watched the video: I think he was sitting on it. Usually, with a curveball, they're going to put their front foot down first, but he was waiting back on it. He hit a great pitch."

But, still, seven runs is seven runs, right?

"Stuff-wise, I felt great," he said. "My breaking ball was good. I didn't get to throw too many splits because I was 2-1 and 3-1 on everyone, but I had a great curveball -- and my fastball, I felt great with it today. ...

"Tonight, my velocity was consistent. Everything felt great. I felt unbelievable tonight."

Penny even turned his five walks into an encouraging sign.

"The walks killed me tonight," he said. "That's uncharacteristic for me. I don't usually walk a lot of people, so I got that one out of the way, I guess."

(Fact-check: Penny has averaged fewer than three walks per nine innings in five of his 10 big-league seasons. For comparison, Josh Beckett has averaged more than three walks per nine innings in six of his nine big-league seasons.)

And he certainly wasn't going to forget the ultimate positive: The Red Sox rallied from the early deficit to win the game. No other Red Sox pitcher has seen the team win both of the games he's started.

"Tonight, those guys coming back like that, that's a first for me," he said. "Other teams I've played on, down 7-0 in the second, it's over. You feel a lot better about an outing like that when your team comes back and wins the game."

Asked and answered: Jason Bay

No, he's not Manny.

So far this season, he's better.

Jason Bay hit his third home run of the season on Friday, an opposite-field blast in the bottom of the second that sparked the Red Sox to a come-from-behind win over the Orioles. The stereotypical Canadian -- he was even at the Bruins game on Thursday night -- now has seven extra-base hits in 10 games and a team-best .781 slugging percentage to go along with 10 RBI.

What's with that opposite-field power?
"Well, it's part of my game. It's not something that I can make happen; it's just something that when you're up there and feeling good and get the pitch, you hit it. Luckily for me, I have the ability to drive the ball out of the ballpark basically all the way around. It just depends on how you're feeling. It is a part of my game, but it's definitely not the only part."

Do you feel like you've turned a corner as an offense these last couple of games?
"I hope so. Definitely, today was a big day for us -- down 7-0 and we chip away here and there and win that game. But more importantly, the bullpen was great, and as an offense, hopefully we got some guys -- I don't think it's fair to think every guy in that lineup is going to be firing at all times. Obviously, early on, there were more guys not doing well than there were guys doing well. It's tough to pick up the slack. But we have the ability to have two or three guys not on their game and still put up a lot of runs. Hopefully, some guys have turned the corner."

How tough is it for guys to stay patient, work the count and draw walks when you're down 7-0?
"I think it's a little bit easier because when you're down by that much, your mentality is, 'We need baserunners.' We're not going to score seven runs on one swing with nobody on. But you're also talking to a team that can play some pretty long ballgames because of the at-bats that we take -- and not because guys are up there thinking, 'I don't want to swing at this pitch.' Guys are very, very selective, whether it's Youk, whether it's J.D.; the list goes on and on. That was more or less our lineup doing what it normally does in getting guys on."

How unusual did tonight's game seem to you?
"We were just eating dinner, and I looked at Pedey, and I was like, 'We're not talking about the fact that we were down 7-0 and we won that game.' 7-0 is a humongous deficit, especially when they have their No. 1 guy on the mound. You can't get it all back at once. We got four back right away, which was huge because if you go out in the second inning after they got seven and roll over, it sets the tone a little bit. We got a couple back there, and then you chip away, one here, one there, boom, it's a doable game. That's something most guys probably forgot about or maybe haven't really soaked up yet. But that could potentially be a season-changing game in a lot of aspects, whether it's the offense getting going or it's record-wise, getting one more win instead of one more loss. Whatever it is.

"That was a long answer."

But that was a pretty smooth seven-run comeback.
"That's kind of why it gets overlooked. It was, 'Hey, we won the game,' and at the end, it was like, 'Hey, no big deal.' It was early enough that we came back when it wasn't that dramatic; it was early in the game, a couple of runs here and there: 'OK, now we're down by three.' 'OK, now we have a tie game.' Once it was 8-5, it was almost like it was a regular game, not remembering we were down seven at one point. That's how it gets lost."

Was there any point when that flipped over from coming back from seven runs down to a regular game where you just have to chip away?
"You go out there and, obviously, J.D. walks and then you get a home run, and all of a sudden, it's like, 'OK, we're only down five,' and we have another baserunner. We went back out and it was 7-4, now we're talking about three runs. Regardless of what had happened, three runs is three runs. It's a quote-unquote 'regular game' or 'regular deficit,' and you can make that up. That was the mentality -- just chip away -- and we did that. That's ultimately the formula you want to use. Nine times out of 10 it doesn't work that way when you're down by seven, but tonight was one of those nights for us."

Swinging and swinging and swinging

Brad Penny was not effective in the second inning on Friday. In fact, Brad Penny was really, really bad in the second inning. He walked three Orioles, allowed hard-hit singles to three other Orioles and allowed a grand-slam home run to Nick Markakis on a hanging curveball over the middle of the plate.

Even worse than the grand slam, though, was the fact that he'd gone to three-ball counts on four of the first seven hitters he'd faced. When Adam Jones came up with the bases loaded and two runs already in, Penny walked him on four pitches. All in all, he threw 17 balls to the first seven hitters of the inning. He then tried too hard to throw a strike to Markakis; the Orioles' franchise slugger Bernie Carboed the thing.

That brought up Aubrey Huff for the pivotal at-bat of the game.

The Orioles had Penny on the ropes. The bases were empty, but it didn't look like the Red Sox would be able to be much more patient with their starter. One more walk, it seemed, would force Francona to go to his bullpen with 7 2/3 innings left in the game and almost 35 innings left in the four-game series.

Here's what Huff did:
1. He swung at a fastball off the outside corner and fouled it off.
2. He swung at a fastball in the strike zone and fouled it off.
3. He swung at a fastball up and out of the zone -- the count was 0-and-2, after all -- and fouled it off.
4. He swung at a curveball on the inside part of the plate and popped it to Nick Green at shortstop.

Inexplicable.

All Huff had to do was take a couple of pitches out of the zone -- pitches Penny couldn't help but throw -- and work a walk. If he'd done that, he'd (a) have kept the inning going, an inning in which everything the Orioles hit seemed to be finding grass, and (b) forced Francona to yank Penny and go to lefty Hunter Jones, a pitcher who would have been making his major league debut.

Instead, though, Huff hacked and hacked and hacked. Penny survived to pitch another inning-plus, facing seven more hitters that Red Sox relievers otherwise would have had to face.

(The righty finally was yanked when Adam Jones, apparently a far wiser man than Huff, didn't take his bat off his shoulder in working a five-pitch walk to lead off the fourth inning.)

The Red Sox even rallied to make it a game again, capitalizing on a few friendly bounces and a few big hits to tie the game in the fifth inning. A big reason for that was the fact that J.D. Drew, leading off the bottom of the second inning, worked a four-pitch walk to get things going. He didn't try to hit a seven-run home run the way others might have. He stayed patient and worked a walk -- and Jason Bay followed with a two-run home run that turned the game around.

In the fifth inning, after J.D. Drew tripled with two outs, Jason Bay and Mike Lowell both stayed patient and worked walks from a laboring Jeremy Guthrie and gave Nick Green a chance to hit a game-tying double to dead center field.

Huff came up again in a pitcher-on-the-brink situation in the sixth. Javier Lopez had just walked Nick Markakis on five pitches and looked like he couldn't find the strike zone with the Google Maps feature on his iPhone.

Here's what Huff did:
1. He took a slider outside.
2. He took a slider outside.
3. He took a fastball outside.
4. He took a fastball on the outside corner.
5. He took a fastball on the outside corner.
6. He went after a fastball over the middle of the plate and ripped it into left field for a single.

With righty Ty Wigginton coming up, Francona then had no choice but to lift Lopez and go to Ramon Ramirez an inning earlier than he'd hoped he would. If Wigginton hadn't gone after the first pitch thrown by Ramirez -- a pitch up and out of the strike zone -- the Orioles might have regained the lead.

Taking pitches isn't just about on-base percentage. Taking pitches isn't just about base-runners, either. Taking pitches is about letting a pitcher who's beating himself keep beating himself -- and Huff's inability to do just that might have cost his team this game.

(Don't think so? If that deficit had grown much larger than seven runs, Terry Francona would have deployed his bullpen much differently than he did: "When we scored and got it closer, I feel an obligation to the players out there because of the way they're trying to get back in this game. It's a hard way to play, unloading your bullpen like that. But they deserve from us to do that.")

Something you don't see every day

Something of a surreal scene from the hallway behind the Fenway Park press box:

A gray-haired black man emerged from the NESN booth just as a gray-haired white man was about to go back into the MASN booth.

The white man was Jim Palmer, one of the greatest lefthanded pitchers in baseball history and now a broadcaster for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. The black man was Pumpsie Green, the first black player in the history of the Red Sox; he'd had been honored before the game and thrown out the ceremonial first pitch and then spent the fourth inning on the air with Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy.

"Is that Pumpsie Green?"

"Yes?"

"Jim Palmer."

(The two shook hands.)

"I didn't get to see your toss," Palmer said. "How was it? You still got it?"

(Green, to put it gently, had thrown a ground ball. David Ortiz had scooped it up about six feet in front of the plate. To be fair, though, Green is 75 years old.)

The former infielder didn't miss a beat: "Nope."

"Me, either," Palmer said with a big grin.

Confirmed: Masterson to start Monday

As expected, starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter Justin Masterson will get the ball on Monday against the Orioles.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona said he and pitching coach John Farrell had contemplated pushing Tim Wakefield up a day; the day off Thursday means he'd still be pitching on four days' rest. But with the knuckleballer having pitched a complete game on Wednesday and the Patriots Day game scheduled to start at 11 a.m., Francona opted to give the veteran an extra day to rest.

(Interestingly, Wakefield has better numbers in his career on four days' rest than on five days' rest -- his ERA is 4.18 in 201 starts on four days' rest and 4.57 in 120 starts on five days' rest. The numbers probably aren't significant enough, though, to override the advantages of not overworking a 42-year-old arm.)

That means Masterson will make his 10th career big-league start as the Boston Marathon runners are cruising through Kenmore Square. The second-year sinkerballer started the season in the bullpen but threw as many as 81 pitches in his outings in spring training; by the time he'd thrown 60 pitches in relief of Daisuke Matsuzaka on Tuesday, the decision pretty much had made itself.

"It's hard to go through that in the middle of a game when you're in Oakland, but when we brought him in early, there was some thought to, 'Oh, let's get him at least...'" Francona said. "He needed to get them out, which he did. But we wanted to get him to a certain pitch count so he could go out and give us a game where you're not going through the whole bullpen."

Masterson made four relief appearances in the first 10 days of the season, throwing fewer than 10 pitches in two of those. But it's still been less than a month since the end of spring training -- hardly enough time for him to be on a regimented routine as a short reliever.

"The way he was treated this spring was mostly as a starter," Francona said. "If he'd started getting out there a ways, it's a little hard to ask somebody to throw 80 or 85 pitches. It's certainly easier, once you're into the season, to go back to the bullpen. But we're only two weeks, nine games into it."

Masterson had a significantly lower ERA last season as a reliever (2.36) than as a starter (3.67). Part of the reason for that was the Red Sox could dictate matchups when bringing Masterson in out of the bullpen; the then-rookie saw lefties hit .238 and get on base at a .365 clip against him as opposed to .196 and .274 for righties.

With Masterson in the bullpen, Francona could save him for a stretch of tough righties. With Masterson as a starter, opposing teams are likely to stack their lineup with lefties.

"If he pitches like he can, he'll get people out," Francona said. "When he uses his changeup and his breaking ball and locates his fastball, a lot like any pitcher, because of his style, it doesn't mean he can't be tough on lefties. It just means he's real tough on righties."

It helps a lot that the Red Sox have a swingman like Masterson, but he's nothing new on their pitching staff. It's only been two years since Julian Tavarez was doing the same double duty. Tavarez started 23 games and made 11 relief appearances in 2007; he started six games and made 52 relief appearances in 2006.

"Julian was amazing at that," Francona said. "He could go a long time (without starting), and then he'd take the ball and say, 'You can leave me out here all day.' He sucked up a lot of innings when he probably shouldn't have, but it helped save our staff at times. He was amazing at that. ... He understood that sometimes that was part of his role, was sucking up some innings that maybe weren't the glamorous ones but that helped us win games down the road."

Other notes from Francona's pregame get-together with we notebook-toting types:

* Josh Beckett, who has appealed his six-game suspension, will make his scheduled start on Saturday against the Orioles. There's nothing new on the status of that appeal.

* Lefty Hunter Jones, called up from Triple-A Pawtucket on Wednesday, is in the bullpen today. Francona declined, though, to say whether Jones would stick with the team even through the weekend.It remains possible, though, that the Red Sox could send down Jones and bring up Clay Buchholz if Beckett either was denied in his appeal or opted to drop his suspension in time for Friday's game against the Yankees.

* Jed Lowrie walked through the locker room with his wrist in a soft cast; Francona said he'll stay in the splint for another five days or so. The plan is for the player, the manager and the general manager all to meet with doctors this evening to plot out a course of action.

"We also, afte talking today with Jed at length, want to visit with (team doctor) Tom Gill and him together tonight, just to get a little better handle," he said. "Jed is a really intelligent kid and has a lot of questions, which is good. But at the same time, I don't feel qualified to answer them -- and when he asks questions, they make sense to me, so I'd like to sit there and listen myself. I think Theo (Epstein) felt the same way."

* Mark Kotsay and Julio Lugo both played in an extended spring-training game in Fort Myers today. Lugo had five plate appearances and ran the bases a couple of times, while Kotsay had two plate appearances, lining out to deep center field in one of them. Team vice president Craig Shipley reported that everything seemed to go well for both players.

* John Smoltz will pitch on Saturday in Fort Myers.

* Remember the last time Jeremy Guthrie started a pre-Memorial Day game at Fenway Park? Hint: He went 8 1/3 innings and allowed just three hits and took the loss in a game that went down as the Mother's Day Miracle.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 5

If we were going to do the Mount Rushmore gimmick, which we're not, here's the last of the faces that would miss out on the honor:

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF

5. Roger Clemens
We all know how great Clemens was in 1986 and 1987 and 1990. But we also talk all the time about how bad he was in 1993 and 1995 and 1996 -- was he really that bad?

From the Gospel According to Bill Simmons:
On Roger Clemens in 1993: "Clemens signed a four-year, $20 million contract and took much of the next three-plus years off, almost like a professor who gets tenure and doens't feel like grading papers anymore. Unveiling a historic double chin, ... Clemens battled arm problems en route to his first losing season."

On Roger Clemens in 1995: "After rededicating himself for the strike-shortened '94 season (9-7, 2.85 ERA), he arrived the following spring like he was auditioning for the John Goodman Story. ... When Clemens squandered his only playoff start, that only fueled those 'can't win the big one' doubts."

On Roger Clemens in 1996: "Chunky, disinterested and increasingly agitated about Boston's failure to offer him a contract extension, the Rocket turned on his jets once the team fell out of playoff contention, going 6-2 over his last 10 starts and striking out 20 Tigers in mid-September. Classic Roger, through and through. You could always count on him when it mattered least."

Harsh stuff.

To be fair, this came from a column Simmons wrote for ESPN.com entitled "Is Clemens the Anti-Christ?", so you knew it wasn't exactly going to be a love letter.

Still, though, harsh stuff.

Clemens finished in the top three in the American League in Cy Young Award voting in 1990, 1991 and 1992. He won the award (for the third time in his career) in 1991, but his more impressive season might have been 1992, when he had a 2.41 ERA and won 18 games for a team that finished last in the American League East.

Over the next four years, though, he won 30 games -- total -- and only once had an ERA under 3.00. The numbers are there to make a case, as Simmons did, that Clemens took three and a half years off. But is it really true?

Let's take a look, shall we?

1993: A lousy year. There's no getting around it. But he actually started off hot; he had a 1.73 ERA and a pair of complete games through eight starts, including a complete-game shutout at Baltimore in May in which he struck out 13. He then started to scuffle; he had a 6.48 ERA from mid-May until he went on the disabled list with a groin injury at the end of June. After he came back, he was hit-and-miss -- he gave up five or more earned runs in seven of his last 10 starts.

All in all, he went 11-14 with a 4.46 ERA and 160 strikeouts; it was the first time he'd failed to top 200 strikeouts since 1985. His ERA+ was 104, the lowest it would ever get between his first full season and when he turned 35 years old. (To compare him to some contemporaries: Greg Maddux's lowest ERA+ in his prime was 125, at age 33, but Tom Glavine got down to 106 when he was 28 years old.)

1994: A pretty good year, all things considered. The win total (nine) has to be taken with a grain of salt given that the strike cost him the last month and a half of the season -- and after a couple of subpar outings to start the year, he went 6-2 with a 1.44 ERA and 90 strikeouts between April 15 and June 11. In July and August, he had a 2.44 ERA and took a couple of hard-luck losses. (He lost one game in which he allowed two runs in seven innings; he lost another game in which he allowed three runs in eight innings.)

All in all, he was 9-7 with a 2.85 ERA as well as an American League-leading ERA+ of 177 -- the second-best ERA+ of his career to that point.

1995: Certainly not a bad year considering the shoulder injury that cost him the first two months of the season. (Simmons blames Clemens' poor conditioning for his injuries; that might be it, but the fact that he threw at least 225 regular-season innings every year from 1986-1992 might have had something to do with it, too.)

He allowed five earned runs in five innings in his first start back, but he had a 1.90 ERA in his next four starts and, after a series of stinkers in July, a 2.88 ERA in August and September as the Red Sox clinched their first division title in five years.

And that playoff start, the one that "only fueled those 'can't win the big one' doubts," Clemens retired the first nine Indians in order and wiggled out of trouble in the fourth, thanks in part to a strikeout of Albert Belle with two runners on base. He surrendered three runs on a walk and three hits in the sixth, but he left the game after seven innings having allowed just those three runs on five hits to go along with five strikeouts and one walk.

1996: The contract year. This is the year that seems to grate on Simmons the most. Let's read the case for the prosecution one more time:

"Chunky, disinterested and increasingly agitated about Boston's failure to offer him a contract extension, the Rocket turned on his jets once the team fell out of playoff contention, going 6-2 over his last 10 starts and striking out 20 Tigers in mid-September. Classic Roger, through and through. You could always count on him when it mattered least."

Again, this merits a closer look. The Red Sox went 14-20 in Clemens' starts in 1996, including 0-6 in April as they tumbled quickly into last place in the American League East. Clemens, though, had a 4.17 ERA in April -- far from spectacular, sure, but not exactly disastrous, either. His worst start was a loss to Cleveland on April 21 in which he gave up five runs in 5 2/3 innings. His best might have been five days later against Kansas City; it was a start in which he gave up two runs in seven innings while striking out 11 -- only to take the loss because the Red Sox couldn't manage more than one run through the first eight innings.

And five days after that, he went the distance against Detroit to earn his first win of the season; he allowed one run on six hits, striking out 13 and walking no one. Yet another gem was next on the agenda; he allowed just two runs in 7 2/3 innings against Milwaukee and struck out 10. At that point, he had a 3.38 ERA.

From there, his ERA began to climb slowly northward. He allowed six earned runs at Toronto on May 12, four earned runs to Seattle on May 23 and six earned runs at Oakland on May 28. He then allowed six earned runs against the Yankees on July 16, seven earned runs at Kansas City on Aug. 1 and five earned runs against Chicago on Sept. 13.

Those clunkers, though, tended to be sandwiched around some classic Clemens-type outings -- a 10-strikeout effort at Detroit on July 11, an 11-strikeout effort in a complete-game win against Oakland on Aug. 22 and, of course, that 20-strikeout game at Detroit on Sept. 18.

He finished the year with a 3.63 ERA -- by far the best among Red Sox starters. (Tom Gordon had a 5.59 ERA; Aaron Sele had a 5.32 ERA.) His ERA+ even ranked him fifth in the American League ahead of Kevin Appier, Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina.

A year later, of course, he'd go 21-7 with a 2.05 ERA and win the first of his two Cy Young Awards with the Toronto Blue Jays. It's fascinating, though, that he's so villified for using Dan Duquette's snub as motivation to turn himself back into an elite pitcher -- particularly because he wasn't nearly as bad in 1994, 1995 and 1996 as some would have you believe.

Coming up: The final infielder on our list -- and the second-greatest power hitter in the history of the franchise.

Red Sox not "scrambling" for pitching

Justin Masterson saved the Red Sox from having to empty their bullpen completely on Tuesday night. He'll also save the Red Sox from having to scramble for pitchers -- as opposed to what some would have you believe -- in the aftermath of Daisuke Matsuzaka's bout with arm fatigue.

Yes, the Red Sox will need Tim Wakefield to pitch deep into today's game in Oakland to save wear and tear on a bullpen that employed six of its seven arms in Tuesday's 12-inning loss. But the fact that Masterson threw four outstanding innings meant the Red Sox (a) didn't have to use Takashi Saito, and (b) didn't need either Ramon Ramirez or Jonathan Papelbon to throw more than 20 pitches, making them potentially available today.

(It would help, too, if the Red Sox got a better outing from Wakefield than the disaster he turned in the last time he pitched in Oakland: He allowed eight earned runs in five innings en route to an 8-3 defeat.)

The Red Sox have a scheduled day off on Thursday, meaning Manny Delcarmen (36 pitches on Tuesday), Hideki Okajima (28 pitches on Tuesday) and Javy Lopez (25 pitches on Tuesday) will have back-to-back days off and be ready to go against the Orioles on Friday.

(It's worth keeping in mind that the A's, too, emptied their bullpen thanks to the ineffectiveness of Dana Eveland. Andrew Bailey, Russ Springer and Brad Ziegler all threw more than 20 pitches on Tuesday. Bob Geren won't have much more available than Terry Francona will. Jerry Blevins, anyone?)

And in five days, if Matsuzaka isn't able to take the ball when his spot in the rotation comes around, Masterson is perfectly in line to get that start.

It only makes sense. The Red Sox treated him as a candidate to start throughout the spring and only began to limit his innings in the final week or two in Fort Myers. He's a valued eighth-inning guy -- his first two appearances notwithstanding -- but the Red Sox have always known they can turn him back into a starting pitcher if necessary. He even threw 81 pitches in a minor-league game on March 27, less than three weeks ago.

He threw 60 pitches in relief of Matsuzaka on Tuesday, a heavy workload for a reliever but a relatively light day for a starter. He'd get five days to rest and five days to throw a bullpen session or two in preparation for a Patriots' Day start next Monday. He's been a starter for most of his life; he had a 3.67 ERA in nine big-league starts last season, a stat that looks even better when you consider that opponents hit .206 and slugged .366 off him.

Clay Buchholz might yet be needed to plug the hole left by Josh Beckett if the ace's suspension isn't reduced. The phenom righty actually is on the same schedule as Beckett; he last pitched on Sunday and is in line to pitch on Friday and again the following Wednesday.

But he's an option to fill in for Matsuzaka, too; the Red Sox could limit his innings on Friday with an eye on giving him a big-league start on Monday.

Either way, the Red Sox have options. This is what happens when you have quality pitching depth in your organization -- you don't have to scramble for pitchers.

The Angels, another team with World Series aspirations, have had to scramble for pitching. Kelvim Escobar, John Lackey and Ervin Santana all are on the disabled list. (That's not to mention the tragic death of top prospect Nick Adenhart in a car accident last week.) Mike Scioscia has had to fall back on Darren Oliver (yes, Darren Oliver) and the old reliable To Be Announced when lining up his starting rotation this week.

The Angels are scrambling.

The Red Sox are shuffling. If Matsuzaka can't go, Masterson can pitch. If Beckett is suspended, Buchholz can pitch. John Smoltz still is on the way.

The Red Sox never wanted anything to happen to any of their starting pitchers. But Matsuzaka's injury and Beckett's suspension demonstrates just why you can never have too much pitching depth. Most other teams would scramble in this situation. The Red Sox don't have to.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 6

Let's take another glance at the Top 100 list -- it's more fun than watchin Jon Lester get knocked around by the A's, isn't it?

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P

You knew he was going to surface around here somewhere:

6. Manny Ramirez, OF
Two players rank among the top five in Red Sox history in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and home runs: Ted Williams and Manny Ramirez. At some point, probably after he's retired and after he's been elected to the Hall of Fame, your average Red Sox fan will realize what a privilege it was to watch someone hit the way Ramirez hit.

We've all heard the Manny-being-Manny stories -- and we've all formed an opinion about whether Ramirez quit on the Red Sox or was manipulated by Scott Boras or had just reached the end of his time in Boston the way so many others have. (Baseball Prospectus does a better job than we could here of sorting through the hype and the myth -- pointing out, for example, that Ramirez hit .347 and slugged .587 in July of 2008 while playing in 22 of the Red Sox's 24 games.)

That's all in the past -- and so too are the 7 1/2 years in which Ramirez hit the ball better than anyone has hit the ball for the Red Sox since, oh, about 1960.

Just for fun, here are a few random statistics from the ongoing career of one of the best righthanded hitters the game has ever seen:

* In home games, he's hitting .315; in road games, he's hitting .314. (As an indication of how unusual this is: American Leaguers a year ago hit .276 at home and .259 on the road. Alex Rodriguez is a career .314 hitter at home and .298 hitter on the road.)

* With the bases empty, Ramirez has hit .299 and slugged .567. With runners on base, he's hit .330 and slugged .619.

* With a runner on third and less than two outs, he's hit .393 and slugged .693. That's getting the run home.

* When swinging at the first pitch, Ramirez has hit .376 and slugged .756; he's hit 94 of his career home runs on the first pitch -- including this home run.

* His career slugging percentage before the All-Star Game is .581; his career slugging percentage after the All-Star Game is .607.

* As a pinch-hitter, he's a .115 career hitter.

* His worst inning, by far, is the ninth inning; he's hit .267 and slugged .480 in the ninth inning in his career. That's the only inning in which he has a sub-.500 slugging percentage. Then again, if his team is hitting in the ninth inning, he's generally facing closers. That might have something to do with it. (He has a .265 batting average against power pitchers versus .342 against finesse pitchers.)

* He's hit his old team, the Cleveland Indians, harder than any other American League team -- he's got a .352 batting average against Cleveland. He hit just .269 against the Red Sox before Dan Duquette lured him to Boston before the 2001 season; the Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers are the only American League teams against whom he's hitting below .300.

* He has better career numbers in Yankee Stadium (.321 batting average, .605 slugging) than at Fenway Park (.315 batting, .583 slugging).

* And one more: The Red Sox have seen 33 occasions in which players have compiled an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of 1.000 of better. Ted Williams has 13 of those seasons. No one else has more than three -- except Manny Ramirez, who did it from 2001-2004 and then again in 2006.

Coming up: One of the two all-time leaders in wins in Red Sox history.