Two of the hottest hitters in major league baseball right now belong to the Boston Red Sox. First is early AL MVP candidate and current (as of May 26, 2011) MLB hits (70) and RBI (44) leader Adrian Gonzalez, who has a knack for the timely clutch RBI smack that puts the Sox ahead, or helps increase small leads into big ones.
But no Sox player has been on fire more than the other prized offseason acquisition, LF Carl Crawford, who has gone 8-for-9 in his last two games against the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers, respectively, and seen his average go up from .209 on Sunday to .244 through yesterday as part of Boston's 14-1 thumping over the Tigers (its second 14-run game in a row, having blasted out a 14-2 win in Cleveland the day before).
He's spraying the ball to all fields, hitting homers (including two this week), driving in runs in bunches (six this week so far), stealing bases and tracking down fly balls with his well-known speed. In other words, he's doing it all, just like everyone expected he would do coming into the season. The only thing he isn't doing is drawing walks. But hey, no one's complaining now.
The Red Sox offense in all is now right where it should be, tops or near the top in most important statistical categories in the American League and in all of baseball (BB, AVG, HR, TB, H, etc.). The pitching, however, is another story. Still with a team ERA over 4.00, it has lost John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka to the disabled list with arm injuries, and Jon Lester has been shaky in the month of May (as opposed to April, when he is notorious for slow starts).
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