Last season the Boston Red Sox did not spend a second atop the east. 2 years ago back with the 2011 Sox team then dubbed the "dream team" their longest stint atop the division lasted just 1 and a half weeks. Yet 17 days into this new season, the Sox have been no where but the top.
13 games into the year while things really have panned out to make it evident that this entire organisation has been working to get the Sox where the want to be, 2 major facets of the Sox roster have really done what the can to work wins out of 9 of these 13 games.
First and foremost 2 weeks into the year Boston has come out on top of the heap when it comes to pitching as with the blazing combination of Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz in particular has really carried this team. With 3 games started, apiece, 2 wins for Lester and 3 for Buchholz have combined for more than half of the teams wins thus far. In addition to that, with 41 combined innings between the two of them, the two pitchers have seen just 4 runs scored against them (Buchholz has allowed just 1). Finally while manufacturing wins is truly a team effort, the skill to beat opposing hitters simply by way of the strike out is really only under the control of the pitcher, and while in this day and age, notching a strike out isn't that hard, Lester and Buchholz have thrown way more than 1. On average, Buchholz fans just over 9 batters a game while Lester beats averages about 8.5, that tally up 1.3 for Lester and 3 for Buchholz from last years stat sheet.
Additionally while Sox pitching has dominated on the hill, aside from this most recent series where the Sox as a team hit just over .200, Boston has done a pretty good job at giving its pitching a position to play with a lead rather than despretly try to dig themselves out of a 2,3,4 run hole, and while like the pitching the Sox hitting success has been a team effort, the power combination of Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino really has been crucial. The two of them have combined to add 21 RBI's to the teams totals, and as for Napoli, aside from team mate Jacoby Ellsbury lead the team with 55 at bats.
13 games into the season, there have been so many defining factors, so many uplifting figures that it seems like panning through the countless folds of success that this year's Boston team as brought to the field would be a monumental task. Nonetheless while nearly everyone has pitched in, a select few members of this monumental team have gone above and beyond expectations to catapult the Sox to the top of the east and in turn a position they haven't held in over a year.
GO SOX!!!!! :)
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