Yesterday Red Sox fans had to take the bitter with the better. As usual in life, with good things always comes bad things as well; nothing can ever be entirely perfect.

In the 3rd inning, David Ortiz connected on a Luke Hochevar pitch and sent it deep for his 300th career homerun. Big Papi has hit safely in 25 of his last 30 games now, and it seems he has recovered from his troubling start to the season. The joy of seeing Papi get #300 didn’t last for long, though.

We came into the game expecting it to be an easy one. Kansas City is a below .500 team, and they were a dismal 3-6 in their last 10 coming into the game. Their starter Luke Hochevar hadn’t pitched in Fenway since facing Jon Lester during Lester’s no-no last year.

Luke Hochevar actually didn’t pitch so bad, though. He threw 6 innings, and allowed 5 runs, but nevertheless got the win after our relievers once again blew a lead. Manny Delcarmen and Justin Masterson both let up 2 runs, making the score 7-5 Royals in the 6th .

It had been 4-3 when Penny left in the 5th, and he later said that he had felt confident after leaving the game. “Anytime you have the lead after the fifth, I’m happy as a starting pitcher,” said Penny after the game.
 
We ended up losing 8-6 as  the Royals’ ace closer Joakim Soria squandered a threat in the 8th and put us away in the 9th.

Even Jacoby struggled, and he rarely struggles, especially in the field. It was a disappointing game once again, and it exemplified the troubles that have become commonplace for our bullpen.

 

Even worse, the Yankees beat the Twins 6-4 to complete the sweep, tying us for first place in the AL East.

“It shows how well the Yankees have played,” said Jason Bay. “We haven’t played that badly. Except for the Seattle series,
we’ve been winning series.” Okay, but c’mon J-Bay, just take a look at the bullpen…

I can almost see this guy laughing as we struggle to understand just what it is that has suddenly put us in a tie with a team we led by 5 games on June 23rd.

Amid all this disappointment as we head towards the All Star break, I did find something to put a smile on my face at the grocery store this morning. An ad for Kevin Youkilis endorsing B & M baked beans. This is an older ad, but there is a new contest to meet Youk at meetyouk.com

By the way, Youk is officially the man.

In closing, I wish good luck to all the players going to the All Star game and congratulations to the winners of the final vote, Brandon Inge and Shane Victorino. Both are deserving winners and are good additions to both the AL and NL teams.

Thanks for reading.