The Associated Press reports that Wells could not throw off flat ground today, so he will not pitch on Wednesday. Likely starters are Abe Alvarez (now at AAA Pawtucket) and David Pauley (now at AA Portland), both of whom are on the Red Sox 40-man roster. I think Alvarez is the likely candidate—his last start was on the 25th.

This discussion should really be in a TDIB thread, but seeing as we don't have a current one going yet this morning, I'd like to address Wildrose's point.

I don't agree that John Gibbons made a mistake when he didn't bring in Ryan with a 6-3 lead, either starting the eighth or when there were two runners on.  It was a modest leverage situation, and you can't have Ryan throwing 2 innings every other day.  After Varitek hit the homer to tie the game, I certainly wondered about leaving Speier in to face Lowell (before Lowell hit the double), even if Speier did have the platoon advantage. 

<i>I don't agree that John Gibbons made a mistake when he didn't bring in Ryan </i>

The only thing I wondered about was why Gibbon's didn't just bring in Speier to start the 8th, rather after Scott Downs put two runners on. I guess he wanted to have a lefty face Big Papi.

Given that the first two batters Speier faced went strikeout-weak fly ball, there was no reason to think he couldn't get Varitek to end the inning. Even on the homer, I thought Speier threw a decent pitch. Sometimes, the other guy wins.

I have to respectfully disagree with ScottTS' assessment of the pitch Varitek jacked into the bullpen. If you watch Molina's glove, the pitch was intended to be a two-seamer off the outside corner of the plate. Instead, Speier started the pitch on the inside corner and it worked back over the middle. He missed his location badly.

It was a poor pitch that an solid hitter like Varitek will usually take advantage of. Unfortunately for Speier, I thought he made a number of great pitches in the inning, but the home run pitch was not one of them.

In response to Fawaz' question, is the difference in hitting ability between Alfonzo and Rios/Catalanotto as large as the difference between your average pitcher and your average NL 1/2 hitters?  I think that it might be, with the strength of Rios/Cat and the weakness of Alfonzo both contributing.  That being the case, a bunt is a good idea assuming relatively typical positioning.

I still hate the compelled bunt.  With the third baseman bearing down knowing the bunt is coming, the execution rate falls dramatically.  Alfonzo still makes enough contact that you want him swinging away if the third baseman is playing way in. 

The next time the Jays get a 6-0 lead, I'm breaking otu the Pepto Bismol.  As Danny Glover says in "Lethal Weapon" - I'm too old for this &*(S!   They've blown three 6-0 leads at home this year, losing to Tampa but managing to beat Oakland and Boston last night.  Last night, this team showed a lot of heart, guts, and character to come back like that.  If the Sox had won, that momentum would've carried them the rest of the series after getting a win in a game that Doc started.  

As far as last night's bullpen use, I had no problem with Downs coming into the game last night.  Halladay didn't have his "A" stuff but it was still good enough for 7 strong innings and a quality start.  It wasn't like he was facing the 2003 Tigers, the Red Sox have a pretty potent lineup that just got better with Crisp back. 

Schoeneweis had worked 3 days in a row and Downs was excellent Saturday against the Pale Hose.  It was unfortunate he plunked Loretta after getting ahead of him 0-2.  The only thing I disagreed with was Speier not getting pulled after Varitek's homer because you could see how pissed he was afterwards (not that I blame him!) but he did so well to punch out Manny and get Nixon to pop out.  With his tendency to give up gopher balls, I thought Speier was in the clear after he got Nixon and I was surprised Varitek's ball made it out.  Anyways, thank God for B.J. Ryan! 

After seeing Johnny Mac's wizardry Saturday, the Jays threw some more leather at the other Sox yesterday with nice catches by Wells and Cat and a nice snare by Doc on that comebacker.   Now would be a good time for the Jays to get their first sweep of the season.  I overheard someone on the GO Train afterwards say their first sweep last year was against Boston. In that case, here's hoping history repeats itself.

Righthander David Pauley gets the start tonight for Boston.  Here are his 2006 splits from Double A Portland. One guesses that his reverse platoon splits are a small sample size phenomenon, but youneverknow.