The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: The Week in Review

The Red Sox went 3-3 for the week beating the Astros last Sunday, taking two out of three from Toronto and dropping the first two games in Texas. The Sox record stands at 20-10 with a 1.5 game lead on the Yankees. Here's the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good: Clay Buchholz is named AL Pitcher of the Month, dominates the Blue Jays and causes an international incident that leads to a steel cage match between Dennis Eckersley and Jack "Zip It" Morris.

David Ortiz has a 24 game hit streak that started last July. For the week Big Papi hit .421 with a homer and 9 RBI. Can he get divorced every week?

Manager John Farrell has been pushing the right buttons. His approach with the starting pitching is obviously apparent, but so is his handling of situations that would have caused clubhouse tumult under the previous manager. And for a moment just imagine He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in front of the cameras talking about Buchholz, foreign substances and gamesmanship. You would have thought he invented the spitball as he tangoed in front of the cameras. Now that would have been an international incident.


The Bad: Felix Doubront was knocked around for a season-high six runs in 3 2/3 innings Friday in a loss to the Rangers. Not-a- King Felix has an ERA of 5.67. Btw Allen Webster had 9 K's and gave up two hits in six innings for Pawtucket the same night. Just sayin'.

Will Middlebrooks is hitting .193 on the year and had a two error game Saturday. I heard someone just yell "YOUK". Sorry, he's on the DL with 15 other Yankees.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia is hitting .222 with 28 K's in 20 games. Salty had a double this week. So there's that.


The Ugly: Mike Napoli got ugly with the Blue Jays and took it out on the baseball. Big Napi hit two home runs that measured 939 feet or 286.2 meters for our friends in Toronto.

Shane Victorino (back) and Andrew Bailey (bicep) both missed most of the week. Victorino was in there the last two nights with a hit and Bailey will be re-evaluated when the team gets back to Boston. Joel Hanrahan was spotted sticking pins into a homemade voodoo doll made from an old corn husk and a lock of Bailey's hair.


After todays finale with Texas, the Red Sox return home to host the Twins and the Blue Jays. Saturday afternoon at Fenway it's Buchholz vs The Jays part deux. Something tells me much will be said, written and tweeted before then.

Give me the good, the bad and the ugly on Twitter @TheGuruGS