– What a performance by Gavin Floyd tonight. He’s starting to prove Zach right. I’ve never doubted his talent or stuff, just his mental toughness. Tonight, he had plenty of that, getting out of jam after jam. It was a gutsy performance from Floyd tonight, and it was great to see him get those Twins demons off his back.
– The offense, however, still sputtered. Only two guys hit, and those two guys have been the only one’s hitting the last two weeks: Alex Rios and Alexei Ramirez. Coincidentally, I’ve noticed these two guys have hustled on the base paths more than others lately (I know, I just used “Rios” and “hustled” in consecutive sentences). Rios made a terrific base running play reading Alexei’s blooper and scoring on it. Last season, he dogs that.
– Addison Reed was really shaky tonight, but he figured it out and got the job done. When you don’t throw strikes, you will have issues no matter who you are. I’d just expect this to be a minor bump in the road.
– Paul Konerko, Alejandro De Aza and Adam Dunn continue to all look lost. They are swinging at a lot of bad pitches, which is very uncharacteristic of Paulie. Slumps make you do crazy things though, and these three guys just need to keep a level head and realize that you break out of these things almost overnight.
– I like the defensive moves in the ninth inning. Escobar has proven this year he is the team’s best defensive third baseman, and Youkilis won a Gold Glove at first. Plus, while Paulie is still pretty solid with the glove, his range isn’t quite what it used to be.
Cleveland lost tonight, and Detroit is down three as I’m writing this, so this could be a big and productive win for the Sox. Let’s hope Chris Sale keeps the momentum going into New York.
