Jon Lester pitched much better in his 2nd start of the spring.  Even though the Red Sox ended up losing to the Tampa Rays 8-6, Lester shined during his 2 2/3 innings pitched.  He gave up just 1 unearned run on 2 hits and 1 walk.  Lester also struck out 4 batters on the day.  Lester also looked sharp and was in good command of all of his pitches, so it was a positive outing all-around.

Jonathan Papelbon worked another scoreless inning of relief giving up just a lone single.  Hideki Okajima, Ramon Ramirez and Daniel Bard also worked scoreless innings.  Ramirez and Bard each struck out 2 Rays as well.

The Red Sox bats showed up on fire as well.  Jacoby Ellsbury hit lead-off and went 2 for 3 with 2 home runs and 3 RBI’s.  Dustin Pedroia notched 2 more hits and is now batting .455 this spring.  Kevin Youkilis stroked 2 doubles with 1 RBI and 1 run scored.

Good news continues to pour in for the Red Sox this spring.  Lots of good pitching, solid hitting and numerous wins.  Can’t wait for April to get here – Fenway Park, Yankees – it doesn’t get any better than that!

It will be interesting to see how Wakefield pitches this spring.  If he performs at a high level and if Clay Buchholz struggles or if Daisuke Matsuzaka struggles or isn’t fully recovered from his back soreness, it could make things difficult on GM Theo Epstein and Manager Terry Francona.  The Red Sox are set with their top 3 starters – Josh Beckett, Jon Lester & John Lackey – but the real competition is for the final 2 spots behind the top 3.  The Red Sox could decide to take it slow with Dice-K and let him fine tune some thing in Florida after camp breaks.  Or if Wakefield and Dice-K appear ready to go, then the Red Sox could send Buchholz down to the minors to let him continue working as a starter for Triple-A Pawtucket.  There always seems to be injuries here and there, so it’s never a bad thing to have “too much” starting pitching.  We’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear anything concrete on the starting pitching competition…

Josh Beckett was electric in his 2nd spring start – tossing 3 perfect innings against the stacked St. Louis Cardinals offensive lineup.  Beckett needed just 35 pitches to work through the 9 batters.  He threw 25 of the 35 pitches for strikes and had 3 K’s, using a great combination of fastballs and change-ups mixed in a with a handful of breaking pitches.  Beckett was plain-old nasty: “I felt like I located, I got the ball down well.  I got some ground balls in the first inning, then really got my legs under me in the 2nd… I got out there a little bit later than I usually do.  Warmups took me right up until game time, pretty much.  In the second inning, my timing was getting better… This year, timing is big for me.  It goes into how I feel.  It changes from year to year.  You have different things you want to work on from start to start, from bullpen to bullpen.  I really want to establish my changeup and the arm speed on my changeup.  I want to throw it in different counts, just getting a feel for it.”

The good news just keeps on rolling in for most of the Red Sox pitchers.  Jonathan Papelbon, Hideki Okajima and Ramon Ramirez – 3 important Red Sox relievers – each tossed a hitless and scoreless inning of work.  Manny Delcarmen stumbled a little bit by putting himself in a hole with 2 walks in his 1 inning of work, but he limited the damage to just 1 run.

So far so good for the Red Sox this spring.  Let’s hope we continue to get good reports from Fort Myers for the next few weeks.  Opening Day at Fenway Park is less than 4 weeks away!

Gotta love to hear that Red Sox fans.  We’re relying on Lackey to continue to pitch at a high level for the Red Sox for the next 5 years.  The trio of Josh Beckett, Lackey and Jon Lester will be one of the best front starting rotations in all of baseball.  In a short playoff series, the Red Sox will be extremely tough to beat with those 3 leading the charge.  I’m already getting a little giddy about the prospects of an exciting and successful 2010 MLB schedule — hello World Series run at Fenway Park in October!

Jon Lester had a poor start to 2010 spring training action – giving up 4 earned runs in his only inning of work.  Lester gave up 3 hits and 2 walks and he put the Red Sox in a bad 4-0 to start the game.  Lester had this to say about his effort: “We’re all competitive.  We don’t want to go out there and get beat.  I can sit back and say it was the first one and we’ve got a lot more to go.  There’s some jitters and excitement there.  I’m not really concerned about it.”

Manager Terry Francona thought Lester was not his typical self in the start: “He was struggling right from the get-go.  We could see it in his body language.  It was a fight… As long as you learn from it, it’s good.  I thought his arm looked healthy.  He just wasn’t attacking the zone.”

Not good news at all, but look for Lester to have a much-improved outing his next time out.  He is just too good of a pitcher to let this linger too long during the spring.  Lester is a nice bridge to the 4 and 5 starters in the Red Sox rotation, so it is important for him to be ready right at the start of the 2010 MLB schedule.

Josh Beckett and the Red Sox relievers looked good in the Red Sox 2-1 win over the Minnesota Twins in their Grapefruit League opener.  Although Beckett gave up a run in the 1st inning, he worked 2 innings giving up just 2 hits with 1 strikeout.  It wasn’t a perfect outing, but it was a good start to the spring for the Red Sox ace.  Several regular relievers looked sharp for the Red Sox as well.  Jonathan Papelbon and Daniel Bard each worked scoreless innings while not allowing a baserunner.  Hideki Okajima gave up a walk and a hit but did not allow a run in his 1 inning of work, while Ramon Ramirez issued 1 walk in his 1 inning of work.

So far so good in Red Sox camp.  We’ll keep you posted of any further updates this weekend.

Shortstop-of-the-future Jose Iglesias made a lasting impression in his 1st game in a Red Sox uniform on Wednesday night’s win over Boston College.

Manager Terry Francona called on Iglesias to pinch-run for starting shortstop Marco Scutaro after he singled in the 3rd inning.  Then in his 1st spring at-bat in the following inning, Iglesias jumped on the 1st pitch he saw to deliver a crushing double to left field that cleared the bases with 3 Red Sox runs.  Not a bad day at the office.

Iglesias had this to say about his 1st taste of “big league” action: “I was excited.  I hit the ball good and I was pumped.  But once I got to 2nd base, I had to concentrate on running the bases too because that’s important… It’s like a dream playing here and playing in my first game in a Red Sox uniform.  I still have to work hard and do things every day to get better.  That’s what I’m coming here to do every day.”

Francona was impressed as well: “He looked like he was ready to play.  He wasn’t messing around.  He was obviously very excited to play the game and he kind of came out in a hurry.”

This is great news for the red Sox.  Scutaro will definitely hold down the fort at shortstop for the next 2 years, maybe 3 depending on how quickly the 20-year old develops.  But Iglesias clearly has the tools to be a star shortstop at the big league level for many, many years to come at Fenway Park.  Red Sox Nation is salivating right now…

The Red Sox came away happy with the results of their “opening day sweep” of Northeastern & Boston College on Wednesday.

Casey Kelly helped the Red Sox get the day off to a good start as the club cruised to an easy 15-0 win over Northeastern.  Kelly needed only 10 pitches to record a 1-2-3 1st inning.  7 of his 10 pitches were strikes and 2 of them resulted in strikeouts.  Not a bad spring debut for the shortstop/pitcher who decided to focus solely on pitching this off-season.  “I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling since I got off the mound.  It was a good first outing.  To have the crowd and some of the people behind me playing defense behind me was a tremendous honor… I was very, very nervous going in.  Once I got on the mound, kind of the competition takes over and you want to go out there and do your best.”

The Red Sox defeated Boston College 6-1 in the nightcap.  Boof Bonser needed just 9 pitches to pitch a scoreless 1st inning.  Michael Bowden and Junichi Tazawa – each of whom saw limited stints with the major league club in 2009 – threw 1-2-3 innings as well.  Bonser had this to say about his 1st live game action in almost 2 years (he missed all of 2009 due to injury): “It went great.  I’m glad it’s over.  It was my 1st Spring Training game in pretty much two years.  People say that, ‘Hey, it’s a college team’, but to me, a college team wants to beat your brains in more than the regular team does.  Like I said, I’m glad it’s over.”

Well – although it is 2 exhibition wins against university teams, it’s better than sitting here today analyzing why Bonser or Kelly did not have sharp first outings.  The Red Sox seem to be on the right track and have been avoiding any serious injuries thus far.  That can only mean good things for the Red Sox in 2010.

Daisuke Matsuzaka looks to be back on track during early Spring Training action this March.  Matsuzaka threw a productive session on Monday of this week and could be in line for a regular bullpen session by the end of the week.  Dice-K threw long-toss from the 180-200 foot range and also threw 25-30 pitches off of the pitcher’s mound to a standing catcher.  Matsuzaka has indicated that he does not have anymore issues with his back right now.

Manager Terry Francona was ecstatic about the session – “That was about as good a day, I think, as you could have.  I don’t think you can throw the ball like that and not be totally healthy.  So probably start thinking about toward the end of the week, getting him some real mound work where he’s throwing some sides and throwing to hitters and going through that progression.  But that was a real, real good day.”

It’s still unclear whether Matsuzaka will be ready by opening day.  But it may not really matter – there are a ton of off-days for the Red Sox in April so even if he is ready by the 3rd week of April, that may be the 1st time that the Sox really need him.  This could be good news Red Sox Nation.  We’ll keep you posted, but let’s just hope that Daisuke avoids any further setbacks the rest of the spring.

The Boston Red Sox open up Grapefruit League action with 2 games against university teams on Wednesday.  Casey Kelly will square off against Northeastern University in the 1:05PM EST opener, while Boof Bonser will take on Boston College in the 6:05PM EST night cap.

It seems like everyone is excited to get on with live game action finally.

Marco Scutaro said that fielding is easy for him, but that getting a rhythm at the plate takes a little more time: “For me, I guess it’s timing.  When you’re hitting, it gets a little harder.  Slowly you start getting your timing, and then you lose it again and get it back again.”

After an injury plagued 2009, Jed Lowrie is ready to show that he is ready for the 2010 MLB schedule: “It’s a time that I kind of have to be a little self-centered and focus on myself.  I can’t be where everybody else is at, because I spent most of the offseason just trying to figure out what was going on with my wrist.  I need to be a good self-evaluator this Spring Training and just be honest with myself… You spend all offseason getting ready for games.  We’re ready to get those going.  It will be good to be in that competitive atmosphere.”

I am definitely starting to get a little giddy — this is going to be a fun 2010 MLB season.  Can’t wait – bring it on!