Bullpen in shambles after extra innings win

Last night's game was like an episode of the Twilight Zone. After the Red Sox supplied a six-run lead to starter John Lackey right off the bat, he gave up four runs in the five and two-thirds innings he pitched. Though Lackey left the game in line for a win (after hitting the showboating Matt Joyce with a pitch and clearing the benches), the Rays tied the game at six in the bottom of the eighth inning.

The game ended up lasting 14 innings and nearly five and a half hours, and by the end those of us still awake and watching started to get a little loopy. Twitter turned into an even stranger place than usual, as Red Sox fans lost our sanity bit by bit. Thing were briefly ahead by two runs in the top of the tenth inning, but the Rays tied it up again in the bottom of the frame when Andrew Bailey allowed a home run, two walks, and an RBI single.

Things stayed tied up at eight apiece until the top of the fourteenth inning. Shane Victorino scored the winning run after some heads-up base running and an RBI single from Nava. Jarrod Saltalamacchia singled in Nava for an insurance run, but the Sox wouldn't need it, as Franklin Morales (who had come in to start the thirteenth inning, sacrificing his Wednesday start) allowed a single but no runs to finally cement a win for the Red Sox.

The win, though as exciting as it was exhausting, left the bullpen in shambles. The Red Sox will have to make a few moves to cover the players who will be unavailable for a game or two, as well as to get someone who can start on Wednesday after Morales took one for the team early this morning - although he did earn himself a win two days early and with just 35 pitches, so there's that.

Peter Abraham has outlined the specifics of the pitching conundrum over at the Boston.com Extra Bases Blog - basically, it looks like Clayton Mortensen might be headed for the disabled list to make some space on the roster, and it's likely that Alfredo Aceves will take Morales' start on Wednesday. Regardless of how the roster configuration shakes out, it's super important that Jon Lester has a fantastic start tonight. The Sox need a lot of innings tonight more than any other point this season, and I have great confidence in Jon Lester.

The Bearded Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox have always been pretty lax when it comes to the physical appearances of their players. Until this season, there was no dress code for players on road trips (Terry Francona apparently just requested that they dress at least as well as he did, and Bobby V. kept expectations pretty much the same). John Farrell has changed that, as he has now required that his players wear a suit jacket when traveling, though ties are apparently optional.

But anything beyond that is up to the players discretion. The Yankees are [in]famous for never allowing facial hair below the mouth on their players, and no haircuts longer than the ears - a curious distinction that prevented Johnny Damon from manning the outfield resembling Jesus, but allowed Jason Giambi to parade around for years sporting a mustache that made him look like a '70s porn star.

The Red Sox have no such rules about hair length or personal grooming, and we've seen some interesting personal style over the last decade, from the aforementioned Damon, to the flowing deadlocks of Manny Ramirez, to the famous goatee (and one-time fu manchu) sported by Kevin Youkilis. Overall, players have been somewhat scruffy much of the time, but this season has included many more full beards than I remember seeing.

These styles include what I like to call the sometimes- or sparsely-bearded, pictured below:

Left to right, top row first: Pedro Ciriaco, Franklin Morales, Felix Doubront, Koji Uehara, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Junichi Tazawa, Shane Victorino, and John Lackey.

Of course, the semi-beardedness of some of these men might have more to do with sheer laziness than any actual attempt at maintaining facial hair. We see some of them clean-shaven at times, scruffy at others, and sometimes even with groomed goatees.

I think my personal favorite among the barely-there-beard coalition is Clayton Mortensen:

The tiny spot just underneath his mouth is often slightly off-center, but it's obvious that it takes significant maintenance to stay baby smooth and scruff free outside that one square inch. The style is too small to be a goatee, but I just can't use the phrase "soul patch" and Clayton Mortensen in the same sentence without giggling.

But the best of all belong to those who have allowed their facial hair to become a full fledged bushy beard. 

Left to right, top row first: Andrew Miller, Jonny Gomes, David Ross, Mike Napoli, Dustin Pedroia, Mike Carp, Ryan Dempster, and David Ortiz.

Napoli and Ortiz almost don't qualify, as they keep their beards so short, but one look at the precise shaping will tell you that these are men who take pride in their facial hair. Miller has even toned down his look from the beginning of the season, for a few weeks he looked positively wild. Miller, Gomes, Ross, Pedroia, Carp, and Dempster all sport what I like to refer to as "lumberjack beards."

Perhaps another time I'll go through the roster and compare the stats of the many bearded players to the few baby-faced ones, but for now this post was just for fun. It's much more entertaining when each player manages to showcase a personal look on the field, despite the fact that they all must dress alike. I'll take the style and personality of these Red Sox over the stuffiness and uniformity of the Yankees any day of the week.

Mother's Day mauling

The pitching woes continued for the Red Sox today, as Ryan Dempster gave up six runs in five innings, before giving way to three different relievers - only one of whom managed to pitch a clean outing. The worst of the lot was Andrew Miller, who only managed to record a single out while allowing three runs to score.

Jose De La Torre gave up a pair of runs in a single inning, while Clayton Mortensen was slightly better, giving up just one run in 1.2 innings, and only Craig Breslow managed to record a 0.00 ERA for the day while completing a single inning. The bullpen, heralded as a great strength of this team at the outset of the season, has become a liability.

Certainly, a large part of the bullpen's struggle has been injury-related, as the opening day closer is now out for the season, and his replacement is on the disabled list. But the big difference between the Red Sox incredible April and their so-far dismal May has been in the pitching - they managed to score four times today, and the score wasn't even close.

One of the things that we all looked forward to with the hiring of John Farrell was his expertise with the Red Sox pithing staff. He's certainly gotten Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester back on track, but his magic touch seems to be missing when it comes to the rest of the rotation and the bullpen. Pitching coach Juan Nieves has his work cut out for him lately, but if Farrell has faith in him, so do I.