The Boston Red Sox are perched atop the American League East with an 11-4 record, the best in baseball as Mike Timlin (2-0) picks up a middle-relief win, Curt Schilling (4-0) keeps on winning and Jonathan Papelbon (S7) keeps wracking up saves.  On Tuesday, Matt Clement started for Boston against Tampa Bay’s Casey Fossum.  The Bosox carried a 1-0 lead into the 7th when the Devil Rays posted 2 runs on a solo blast by Ty Wigginton followed by an RBI ground-rule double by Tomas Perez.   The Red Sox charged back in their half of the 7th with a 3 spot; 1 on a fielder’s choice by Mark Loretta scoring Wily Mo Pena followed by a Manny Ramirez single scoring Loretta and David Ortiz to take a 4-2 lead.  Tampa Bay picked up 2 more runs in the top of the 8th followed by the Red Sox with another 3 in their half of the 8th providing the winning margin as Boston won the game 7-4.  Ruddy Lugo, who couldn’t get anyone out in the Red Sox 8th took the loss for Tampa Bay.  Jonathan Papelbon was credited with the save for Boston.

Wednesday night in Boston belonged totally to Curt Schilling (4-0) who gave up 1 run on 6 hits in his 6 inning of work.  Three Boston relief pitchers totally shut down Tampa Bay allowing them 1 hit through the final 3 innings.  Kevin Youkilis hit a solo homer in the first for Boston and a host of others pitched in with hits and RBIs as a 7 run Boston 3rd inning broke the game open.   Tampa Bay starter Doug Waechter took the loss in his first decision of the season. 
Elsewhere, in the American League, the second place Baltimore Orioles have had a wild 3 game series with the Cleveland Indians with each game being won by a lopsided score.  Cleveland won the first game on Tuesday by the score of 15-1 wracking 20 hits in the process.  Cleveland scored 5 runs each in the 4th and 6th innings to break the game wide open.   Jason Johnson (2-0) got the win for Cleveland, Bruce Chen (0-2) took the loss for Baltimore.

Not to be denied, Baltimore came back on Wednesday night with an 18-9 blowout of their own over Cleveland.  With Cleveland up 7-3 in 5th, Baltimore came back with 7 in the bottom of the 5th, 3 in the bottom of the 6th and another 5 in the bottom of the 8th to overwhelm Cleveland.  Baltimore got their 18 runs on 21 hits.  John Halama (1-0) got the win in relief of Rodrigo Lopez while Cleveland starter Jake Westbrook (2-2) took the loss for Cleveland.

In games completed thus far on Thursday evening, Cleveland took a 4-3 lead into the Baltimore 6th but the Orioles put 6 on the board to break this game open.  Javy Lopez homered with one on for Baltimore followed by 4 additional runs in the 6th.  Baltimore starter Erik Bedard 6 innings and posted his 4th win (4-0) to tie him with Schilling for the major league lead.  Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona (1-1) pitched 5 1/3 innings and took the loss.

In the meantime, the Chicago White Sox are putting together a string of brilliant pitching against the hapless Kansas City Royals.  On Monday,  White Sox pitching tossed a one-hitter at Kansas City to open the series. 

On Tuesday, Chicago won 4-1 over the Royals as Jon Garland (2-1) pitched 6 1/3 innings giving up 1 run on 6 hits as Brandon McCarthy and Bobby Jenks held KC to 1 hit over the last 2 2/3 innings with Jenks (S 5) being credited with the save. 

On Wednesday night, Chicago followed up with another masterful pitching performance, this one by Javier Vasquez (1-1) in defeating the Royals 4-0 in a 3 hitter. Vasquez pitched 8 innings and Neal Cotts and Bobby Jenks combined in the 9th to shut down the Royals.  Jenks (S 6) was credited with the save.

In the National League, the New York Mets have been tamed somewhat by the Atlanta Braves over the last couple of days.  On Tuesday, Atlanta’s Kyle Davies (1-1) went the full 9 in holding the Mets to 1 run, 3 hits as Atlanta defeated the Mets 7-1.  Mets starter Victor Zambrano pitched 5 innings, gave up all 7 runs and took the loss.

On Wednesday, in a tight pitching duel, Tim Hudson (1-1), who followed Davies’ performance the night before by also going the full 9 and giving up but 1 run (that in the 9th) on 3 hits, got the win while Tom Glavine went 8 innings giving up 2 runs on 4 hits in taking the loss.  Andruw Jones hit a 7th inning home run to provide the margin of victory for Atlanta.

For more on the scores, click for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (most games still in progress).

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 20th, 2006 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.