Dragnet Home sweet home: Orioles at Red Sox

If ever there was a blueprint for bouncing back from a sweep, this would be it, wouldn’t it?

Is this what you thought a Radhames Liz would look like? Well, it should be. And just think, if you reversed his first and last name, you might get a fashion designer!

The Red Sox return home to Fenway, perhaps the most hospitable home climes in baseball in dire need of some home cooking. And who do they face? The lowly Baltimore Orioles.

Just how badly is Baltimore playing these days? Consider this: they’ve lost nine straight. That means that they haven’t won a single game since interim manager Dave Trembley was given a very full-time extension. Superstar shortstop Miguel Tejada has reverted to looking like a mini-Manny, part-pouty about being on an awful team and part just trying to focus on getting his own hits.

Even the few good things the birds had going for them, a strong young corps of starting pitching most prominent among them, have gone south. Instead of Jeremy Guthrie, who just hit the DL, Tim Wakefield will start tonight opposite a second-time rookie starter. Good luck with the baptism by fire, Radhames Liz (nice name, huh?). Seriously, even Baseball-Reference doesn’t really know what to expect from him.

Then there are the good things going for Boston: 1) Wakefield is on the bump, trying to become the first 17-game winner in the bigs. Sure, a knuckleballer is still a sure recipe for indigestion, but if ever there was one to feel slightly secure with, it’d be Wakefield over the past month. 2) The Red Sox should be plenty mad. Not only did they get swept out of the Bronx by the Yankees, a rookie reliever tried to drill one of their best batters in the head! Twice! (Don’t worry, we’ll delve much more into this in a later post). 3) If you discount the last meeting between the two teams when Baltimore was on fire, the Sox have owned the Orioles this year. Heading into the series, knowing that the Yankees have misfits Tampa Bay in New York, the Sox should realize that they absolutely have to pull out two of three or better.

Then again, this is the same team that just finished a three-game series with six runs, the same team that allowed opposing pitchers to hold onto a no-hitter through at least six innings twice in a 24-hour period.

Doug Mirabelli is expected to return Sunday, which means this is probably the last hurrah of Kevin Cash, who lived up to his name while catching Wake.

And this is a pitcher who doesn’t know how to not get a decision … literally. Wake has pulled down a W or L every single time he’s taken the bump this year, and is well on his way to a major league record for decisions in starts.

That shouldn’t end tonight. Sox fans just have to hope that he ends up back on the right side of things, bringing the team along with him for a change.

– Cameron Smith