Sox Offense takes the day off against the A's

Thanks to some misinformation and an incorrect listing in my cable guide instead of watching the Red Sox play an exciting opening game against the A's to kick off the season on Tuesday morning, I had a good 4 hours of Mike and Mike in the morning recorded on my DVR and missed the slim Red Sox victory in extra innings. I managed to successfully avoid making the same mistake twice and woke up around 11 AM a few hours prior to class ready for some commercial free hours of baseball action. Unfortunately, all the action the Red Sox could provide this time was a Manny Ramirez solo homerun in the disappointing 5-1 loss to the A's.

John Lester had an unimpressive outing. He managed to avoid any serious mistakes prior to a bad 4 batter stretch in which he would give up a hit, a walk and then a 3 run homerun to Emil Brown that blew open the close game. Outside of that particular stretch I did not think that Lester's performance was poor, but nothing to write home about either. He looked stronger in the later innings, but was pulled after 4 for new reliever David Aardsma. Aardsma, Delcarmen, Corey and Lopez would all give solid performances with Corey giving up a late insurance run in the 8th inning.

The primary problem with the Red Sox was their complete lack of offense. Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, Brandon Moss (Playing his second game in place of the injured JD Drew), and Jason Varitek would go without a hit in the game, as well as Sean Casey in his one Pinch Hit at bat for Moss.

There are some good signs and bad signs for the Red Sox from this season opening series.

Manny Ramirez is playing like it's a contract year (which it is) and provided 5 of the 7 RBI's the sox scored in this series.

Mike Lowell managed to have a good night going 2/4, not bad coupled with the 1/4 night he had in the previous game.

Julio Lugo seems to be starting the season off right going 3/6 in the series, drawing a walk and stealing a base.

JD Drew seems to be working through some minor back problems and did not start either game of this series.

David Ortiz did not look good in the Tokyo Dome despite impressive numbers against A's starter Rich Harden in the past. Ortiz was 0-7 in the series with two walks.

Jason Varitek also had a rough series going 0-8 with 6 strikeouts and no walks, the definition of an offensive black hole. It's a good thing 'Tek brings more to the table than his batting average.

Hopefully this will give the Red Sox some information to work with and begin to work out the kinks and be ready for the A's next Tuesday to resume their season.