Sox Win 6-5, Send Alfredo Aceves Down to Triple-A

The Red Sox got a big win on the field Wednesday, beating the Oakland A's 6-5.  But it was Sox fans who got the bigger win when they heard the news of Alfredo Aceves' departure from Boston to Triple-A Pawtucket.

The Red Sox bats lifted Jon Lester to a 6-5 win, matching the A's three-run fourth inning and following it up with a three-run fifth.  The other two runs for Oakland were split between Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara.  To wrap the game up, Andrew Bailey struck out the side in the ninth giving the Sox their 14th victory on the season.

Lester has already earned his fourth win in 2013.  It took until June 16 of last season for him to notch four.

As for another Red Sox starter, Aceves will not be given a chance to earn a win anytime soon for Boston as he was sent down to Triple-A Pawtucket following Wednesday's game.  The team has given him a 72-hour window to report to the minor league affiliate, but some signs are pointing towards a potential deal in the works.

Aceves got smacked around by the A's on Tuesday night, giving up seven earned runs in 3.1 innings -- the shortest of his career -- and placed the blame on the weather conditions and a hole dug in the mound by opposing starter Bartolo Colon.

"It's hard to figure out what you're going to get out of Alfredo on a given day," manager John Farrell said following the rough outing.  The Red Sox will call up Ryan Lavarnway to fill the roster spot until John Lackey returns from the strained bicep his pitching arm;

Jayson Werth Forces Game Five After Hitting Walk-Off Home Run on Thirteenth Pitch of At-Bat

What do Raul Ibanez, Coco Crisp and Jayson Werth all have in common?  They have all had walk-off hits within the past 24 hours to push their teams closer to the Fall Classic.

Wednesday night, Ibanez came in as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the ninth, hit a game-tying bomb, then a game-winning shot in the twelfth to take a 2-1 series lead over Baltimore.  Crisp, with his team down 3-1 going into the bottom of the ninth, capped the three run comeback off with an RBI single to force Game 5 against Justin Verlander and the Tigers.

Thursday night, with a close game at 1-1 going into the ninth between the defending World Champion Cardinals and the Nationals, Werth led off the bottom of the frame.  The Nats were feeling it on defense, with the pitchers collecting eight of the last nine outs by way of the K.  Werth saw 12 pitches against starter-turned-reliever Lance Lynn, and with a full count, the 13th pitch came, and it sure did go.  Werth slammed a line drive home run over the left field fence to force another Game 5 in the 2012 MLB postseason.

"I was sitting at home watching my boy Raul Ibanez do it, and he gave me something to do today," Werth said after the game, still catching his breath from the celebration.

Thursday afternoon, the Giants won their Game 5 against the Reds, becoming the fifth team to ever come back from a 2-0 deficit in a five game series.  Game 4 of the Orioles-Yankees series is set to begin at 7:37, with Phil Hughes taking on Joe Saunders.  For the nightcap, the amazing story of the Oakland A's continues with Game 5 from O.co Coliseum.

As for my picks?  0-for-3.  I picked the Braves to win the now Cards-Nats series, so there goes another one, and my World Series winners, the Reds, were eliminated in their hometown today.  Awful news.

But man, do I love baseball.

Josh Reddick Is Reason Enough to Want the A's to Beat the Tigers

If you had a childhood, then chances are you like wrestling.  If you follow baseball, then chances are you like Josh Reddick.  Former Red Sox great was traded to Oakland this past offseason in a deal that included closer Andrew Bailey.

Given Bailey's thumb injury that sidelined him for most of the 2012 campaign, its easy for Red Sox fans to sit back and badmouth the deal, but no one could have predicted Reddick's breakout year.  He's playing in a bigger park, for a smaller market team and hasn't gotten a haircut in two and a half years.  Yet he's leading the charge against the Detroit Tigers as his team trails two games to one going into Game 4 in Oakland today.

When the A's captured the AL West crown, Reddick donned his yellow A's bathrobe and paid homage to the wrestling great "Stone Cold" Steve Austin by doing the classic double beer chug.  I picked the A's to go to the World Series this year, and even with the Tigers one win away from moving on, I'm keeping the faith here. 

Balfour Rage.

Moneyball 2: The Chronicles of Reddick and the Rest of the Postseason Teams

 
I'm in the process of getting the rights to that first part of title, so don't even think about using it.

Well, baseball's postseason is set, with the two Wild Card games set to play Friday.  From the American League, the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles will square off for the Wild Card, with the winner facing the number one seed New York Yankees.  The middle match-up will be between the Oakland A's and Detroit Tigers.

In the National League, Friday's Wild Card match-up is between the Atlanta Braves and defending World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals.  The winner of the one-game playoff will face the number one seed Washington Nationals, and the middle match-up is between the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds.

Some big surprises and storylines in the playoffs here, which always makes for great baseball.  The A's were down 13 games to the AL West-leading Rangers going into July, and completed the division-winning comeback by sweeping the Rangers in games 160, 161 and 162.

Looking at the team this year, Billy Beane appears to have done it again.  Former Red Sox great Josh Reddick is having a career year to lead the team, alongside the likes of Coco Crisp, Brandon Moss, Brandon Inge, Josh Donaldson, Yoenis Cespedes, and George Kottaras.  Their pitchers?  Travis Blackley, A.J. Griffin, Evan Scribner -- ever heard of them?  You're not alone.  Looking for big things out of this team, they remind me of the 2004 Red Sox.

Oakland A's fans get a pretty bad rap for being, well, bad.  But if you haven't seen the phenomenon that is Balfour Ragefest, then that link right there is for you.  They have all of those intangibles you look for in a Cinderella Story, plus all of the goofy pieces and players that you look for to jump on the bandwagon.

As for the rest of the postseason, the Orioles haven't made the postseason in any form since 1997, and an hour south, the Nationals haven't made an appearance since they were the Montreal Expos in 1981.  For the Braves, this will be Chipper Jones' last season, and last postseason.  Can the Braves get Chipper one more for his already Hall of Fame-bound career? So many season to love baseball.