The Red Sox young arms.

[nickagneta]

With all the excitement over the Celtics many of us have put our baseball loving on the back burner. But guess what people it's June and we will be playing the All-Star game in about a month. Over one third of the season is gone.

So after last night's win and performance of Justin Masterson I thought I would turn my attention, oh so briefly, although I have a lot of reading time becaus no one nationally is writing about the Celtics, to the amazing performances of the Red Sox young pitching.

How much do we love the fact that Theo decided to keep Jacoby Ellsbury and a slew of young arms? Well, I'll let the stats tell you how much.

Below are the combined stats of 8 pitchers who are all 27 years old and younger(average age 25) and following that is the MLB average number for those same stats, if applicable:

Category        Young Sox Total     Young Sox AVG      MLB AVG     

Wins                     17
Earned Runs      112
Innings                 282.2               
Strikeouts            239
Walks                   136
Hits                        266
ERA                                                          3.56                      4.17
WHIP                                                        1.33                      1.38
K/9                                                            7.61                       6.61
BAA                                                          .241                       .260           

The Red Sox contingent of Clay Buchholz, Justin Masterson, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, David Aaardsma, Manny Delcarmen, Craig Hansen and Daisuke Matsuzaka have averages that beat the MLB average in every category I have sampled. My hunch is if I had sampled more, there would be a bunch more.

All this and the group above also has this to add to their resume over just the last year and a half:

44 Wins
2 No-Hitters
55 Saves
2 World Series Wins
3 World Series Saves

Seems to me that with the other young talent that the Sox have on this team in Ellsbury, Pedroia, Youkilis and at the moment Chris Carter, the Red Sox may be in contention for a World Series Championship for many years to come.

[Robb]

Just turned 28, but Josh Beckett is only 5 months older than Dice-K.  Not exactly old.

Kevin Youkilis, however, just celebrated his 29th birthday.  Not exactly a spring chicken.

[nickagneta]

Just turned 28, but Josh Beckett is only 5 months older than Dice-K.  Not exactly old.

Kevin Youkilis, however, just celebrated his 29th birthday.  Not exactly a spring chicken.

Yeah, I was thinking of including Beckett but I feel that the ages of 28-34 are the real prime years for MLB players, so I cut the age off at 27.

The reason for Youkilis in the position players being young is, first and foremost, I didn't look up his age. I thought he was younger than that. And second, even if he is 29, he's still got a lot of years left in him, so he'll be around for a while.

Back to the main point. This staff really has a complete compliment with the 8 pitchers named above and Beckett. Nine pitchers that include 5 starters, 2 7th inning guys, a set-up man and a superb closer. Six of which are home grown talent and another in DiceK who has never played in any other uniform than the Sox.

I really am excited about the Sox chances not only this year but for years to come.

And the great part is that a lot of this talent are still years away from free agency and will come be extremely affordable and possibly the greatest per dollar value of any pitching staff in the majors. This allows Theo to bring in some expensive position player help and the luxury of making mistakes that can be rectified.

[Nerf MVP]

Anyone paying attention what Michael Bowden's been up to at Portland his last 8 outings?

8 GS, 49.2 IP, 6 ER  , 24 H, 46 K'S, 7 BB.......That's right, 6 ER in nearly 50 inn over his last 8 starts.

He had a perfect game going into the 7th last night before surrendering a double and a run and being eventually  pulled with 2 outs. On top of that, he's only 21 which is a little young for AA.

I wouldn't be shocked to see Dan Bard on the big team by seasons end. After a disaster of an '07 season in which he threw 27 WP's, and was eventually demoted to low A Greenville, he was converted into a reliever and pretty much has done a 180 this year. He's up at Portland now and still blowing the competition away. All I know is that he throws a 98 mph with a nasty curve. More importantly though, he's throwing strikes.

For the record, I wouldn't trade any of these guys (including the one's mentioned by Nick).