The bats - they are alive!

AP Photo by Charles Townson

Manny Ramirez gets a lot of crap - mostly from tv commentators and not fans - about his defensive play. He's playing too shallow, he's lackadaisical, he loses focus, he can't throw, blah, blah, blah.

The reality is = Manny is a pretty decent left fielder, and last night we saw some of that brilliance. He grabbed a wall-ball and threw out a runner at home - no cut-off man, just a straight bullet. Tek applied a fantastic tag, and a run was saved. Here he is celebrating with one of the biggest cheerleaders on the team, Julio Lugo. (And you can say what you will about Lugo's lame offense and somewhat erratic defense, but he sure is an enthusiastic member of the team)

Meanwhile, the Sox bats awoke with a vengeance. Pedroia had his second consecutive three-hit game, and Papi had three hits as well. Every Sox that came to bat got a hit. Final: 12-5.

And we now lead the AL East by 2 games.

Now joining the MASH unit now, though, is Brandon Moss, who had an emergency appendectomy during the game last night. (At the hospital, not in the clubhouse!) Amazing that the symptoms started to manifest during Friday's game, yet he managed a home run and a couple of great catches. The birth of a new dirt dog?

Today, the return of Rays ace Scott Kazmir. Hopefully he's still rusty from his time on the DL; we'll need to capitalize early!