Terry Francona announced the Red Sox rotation for the series on Sunday as well. Jon Lester will take the ball in Game 1 to face Lackey, while Josh Beckett will start Game 2 followed by the young Clay Bucholz in Game 3. The question is, who will Boston's fourth starter be?
MINNEAPOLIS -- Johan Santana had never seen the Metrodome before the Twins took him from Single-A in the Rule 5 draft.
"When I first got there," Santana told FanHouse, "my first impression was, 'How can you play baseball in a place like this?'
"I came from Single-A and from Venezuela, and we don't have any of that stuff. ... I couldn't figure it out. How could this thing [the roof] be up in the air? And then it feels like you're in a bubble. And then you play baseball."
But besides his fine season -- 89 runs scored, 96 RBI, .823 OPS -- Abreu seems to have passed on his patience at the plate to the rest of his Angels teammates.
"He's got the younger players understanding patience isn't a bad thing," Chone Figgins told FanHouse. "It's not about not being aggressive, but being patient, getting a pitch to hit. There's nothing wrong with being 1-1 and hitting, or 1-2, or 2-2.
"It's not something simple to do, but I think we did a good job of it in spring training and have tried to bring it into the season and have so far done a good job."
NEW YORK -- Legendary reputation intersected with rapid decline Thursday night in the Bronx, and the aftermath of the collision wasn't pretty. There stood John Smoltz, one of the brightest stars in baseball across the last two decades, watching what's left of his amazing career crumble to pieces on the Yankee Stadium mound.
One after another Yankee batters sliced apart Smoltz, until it was clear he had nothing more to give. Was this it? Would this be the final wheeze in his last hurrah, Smoltz's epitaph noting he'd suffered death by lefties? He's pitched so brilliantly for so many years, packing heart and soul into every outing, and yet the Red Sox have to know.
They can't win a pennant with Smoltz in the rotation.
It hasn't been the greatest week for Cubs manager Lou Piniella. Not only is he feeling the heat of the Chicago media with the Cubs scuffling, but he's also gotten into an argument with Milton Bradley in which he called his right fielder a "piece of [expletive]." Regardless of whether the exchange should have ever left the clubhouse or not, it's not exactly the type of thing you want the world to know about.
All of this was done after a recent poll by Sports Illustrated in which Major League players were asked anonymously which manager in baseball they would least like to play for, and which one they'd most like to play for. Guess which one Sweet Lou emerged "victorious" in.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That Sunday was a good day to steal home in the major leagues. With an assist from Carlos Zambrano, who airmailed a pitch to the backstop as Dewayne Wise attempted to suicide squeeze, Chris Getz was credited with a steal of home in the White Sox's 6-0 victory over the crosstown rival Cubs. Zambrano followed by plunking Wise, pushing the oft-heated interleague rivalry close to fisticuffs.
"I got a good jump and pulled it off," Matthews said. "The key was getting a big lead. They're definitely not expecting it with two strikes. If there was a right-handed hitter up there, I wouldn't have even tried."
WASHINGTON -- "We have too many Johns on this team," cracked a heard, but not seen, Red Sox player as a horde of media crowded around John Smoltz's locker the day before his first major league start of 2009.
There is (Jon) Lester, the once and future ace. There is (Jonathan) Papelbon, one of the best closers in the game. And Thursday evening in the nation's capital, for the first time there will be (John) Smoltz, the future Hall of Famer trying to reinvent himself one more time as he makes his 2009 debut.
"This is not the old, or the new, or the done," Smoltz said of his return to a major league pitching mound. "This is just a new chapter of which when I have a baseball in my hand, I feel like I can make a pitch and ... take the sting out of the bat."
WASHINGTON -- No matter, how you slice it or where you put the starting and ending points, it's been a long road back for David Ortiz. He's overcome knee and wrist injuries, a mystifying slump last April and an even deeper and more bewildering two-month slump this year.
Heck, who's to even say he is all the way back?
Big Papi has had a good couple of weeks this June, but we've got a much larger sample of at-bats that say he's a significantly diminished hitter. (Of course, there's an even larger sample that makes what seemed like a sudden and sharp decline so difficult to comprehend.)
Terry Francona has slid him back up the order in interleague play, hitting him fifth in all but one of the games he has started since June 12, but he's not back in the three-hole yet, the customary spot from which he has terrorized American League pitchers since 2005.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That umpire Todd Tichenor made quite a name for himself in a big league cameo as a vacation replacement. Tichenor, a 32-year-old Triple-A ump, ejected both managers and both starting catchers in one inning of the Red Sox-Twins game on Thursday afternoon.
"Sometimes, those things happen -- everybody handles thing differently," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "It looked like he had his hands full today."
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was tossed for the 43rd time in his career. An expert on ejections, he said that Tichenor acted too quickly. Tichenor did not make himself available to the media to explain himself.
In the top of the seventh, Twins catcher Mike Redmond argued with Tichenor after he called Jeff Bailey safe at home. Redmond got ejected, and then Gardenhire got ejected when he came out. In the bottom of the inning, Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett and catcher Jason Varitek both expressed their displeasure at not getting a called third strike. Tichenor ejected Varitek and then Francona, who came out to defend his catcher.
In a dark season that seems to keep getting darker for Boston's wide-grinning designated hitter, the early returns of a move down the order are overwhelmingly positive.
Red Sox manager Terry Francona decided to drop Ortiz to No. 6 in the lineup before Tuesday's game against the Minnesota Twins, a move that comes a little over a week after the slugger was benched for an entire series in Seattle.
Ortiz came into Tuesday night's game hitting .195 with just one home run and 12 other extra-base hits in 40 games. Considering how awful he's been, his new spot in the order has to be considered progress. He went 1-for-3 with a double and a walk in Boston's 5-2 loss to the Twins.
Still, unless Ortiz starts to have a lot more nights like Tuesday, he'll have to worry more about falling out of the everyday lineup entirely than regaining his customary spot in the heart of it.
While we're not going to know who the New York Yankees will be facing until Tuesday night, we do know that the Boston Red Sox will be taking on the Los Angeles Angels in the ALDS. We also know who will be pitching for both teams as Angels manager Mike Scioscia announced on Sunday that his starting rotation will have John Lackey going in Game 1, to be followed by Jered Weaver in Game 2, Scott Kazmir in Game 3 and Joe Saunders in Game 4.
Every Sunday, 
NEW YORK -- Legendary reputation intersected with rapid decline Thursday night in the Bronx, and the aftermath of the collision wasn't pretty. There stood 
It hasn't been the greatest week for Cubs manager 
Starting Five
WASHINGTON -- "We have too many Johns on this team," cracked a heard, but not seen, Red Sox player as a horde of media crowded around John Smoltz's locker the day before his first major league start of 2009.
WASHINGTON -- No matter, how you slice it or where you put the starting and ending points, it's been a long road back for 
Starting Five
David Ortiz
