A Better Boston: Red Sox Go Positive

It seems that the steady recovery for Boston's recently beaten baseball franchise is actually going pretty well -- they have now climbed to over .500 in the win-loss ratio, with their 25th win (as opposed to their 24 losses). Besides the players, who else had a big role in rallying the Red Sox to their recent victory?

It would be easy to let that success fall in the claims of Bobby Valentine, the new manager of the Boston Red Sox, and with good reason. Valentine has been at the head of the Red Sox revival, leading the team to enough wins to put them just three and a half games behind first place in the AL East division. Under Valentine, both the veterans and the students of the sport have improved their game, making them tough contenders for the season.

"Prince Fielder slugged a home run in the sixth and added an RBI in the seventh to pull Detroit within 5-3 but David Ortiz hit a solo blast in the bottom of the seventh to extend Boston's lead.

Ortiz went 3-for-4 with two doubles in the absence of team mate Dustin Pedroia, who suffered a thumb injury on Monday.

Daniel Bard tossed 5 1/3 innings to get the win for Boston, and Alfredo Aceves handled the ninth for his 12th save of the season.

Rain held up play for 38 minutes in the eighth inning before Boston resumed their march to victory."

-Yahoo! MLB News

Angels' Pujols and Haren smash the Mariners together

Just tonight (Thursday, May 24, 2012), the Mariners were delivered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Angels. If you have been following their games, then I am sure you know why: Albert Pujols excellent hitting, and Dan Haren's incredible pitching.

Pujols almost stole the limelight from Haren tonight as he pulled three hits, one of which was his 450th career home run. Of course, Haren kept most of his thunder from being stolen by striking out a career-high 14 batters during the game. Watch out!

"He makes good hitters look pretty bad including myself, he has in the past," says teammate Pujols. "He is pretty amazing when he keeps the ball down."

During the game, Haren happened to also seal his 1,500th career strikeout, making the night quite eventful for both of the Angels players. Naturally, they only had good things to say about each other, but on their somewhat less-eventful wins-loss ratio, Haren remarks, "I'm happy obviously to win a game. I forgot what it felt like."

Hopefully, he won't have to forget again.