Canadian Red Sox News

Haven't posted much lately. The Red Sox are off to a great start and there's lots to talk about, but again I want to focus my writings on this blog to be about items that are of particular interest to us Canadian Red Sox fans. For more general Red Sox news, please follow one of the many other Red Sox blogs that I have listed here. For daily updates in particular, I like reading some other Red Sox BBA member blogs, including Christine's posts at Boston Red Thoughts Allan's updates at  Joy of Sox, and Cyn's musings at Toeing the Rubber. Of course, readers from South of the 49th and anywhere else in the world are welcome and even encouraged to read my ramblings and leave comments.

Anyhow, a few Canadian related notes of interest for Red Sox fans:

Canadian Ryan Dempster has had some mixed success so far as a member of the Red Sox.  He only has 2 wins, but twice he only gave 1 earned run and had no decision to show for it.  Four times the Sox have scored 2 or less runs for him in a start, and ony twice have they scored more than 4 times. With some luck he could have 6 or 7 wins.  But he's also had some awful outings.  Overall he has an ERA+ of 99 which is pretty much league average and probably not quite what the Sox were expecting from their #3 starter. Of course with John Lackey's bounce back season, Dempster is the defacto #4 pitcher, and he is well above average for that role.

More interestingly, as first pointed out by Bob Elliott of the Canadian Baseball Network, Ryan Dempster has now faced Canadian starting pitchers 5 times.  Including twice as a Red Sox in the span of a couple of weeks. On April 26th, Dempster picked up his first win as a Red Sox, by beating the Astros and Canadian Erik Bedard.  A couple of weeks later, Dempster had another good start, only giving up 2 earned runs in 7+ innings, but lost to Guelph's Scott Diamond and the Twins.  Also, his second win wearing the crimson hose came in his native county, as he beat the Blue Jays 3-1 on May 2nd. That was his 6th win in Canada, the other 5 all coming in Montreal.

By the way, the other win Dempster has in his career against a Canadian starter came against the Expos and Albertan Mike Johnson, who is from Sherwood Park.

Get Ryan Dempster cards, jerseys and more here!

In other news, the MLB draft is coming up next week.  As you may recall, last year the Sox selected Keaton Briscoe of Vancouver in the 24th round.  He had 100 at bats in the Rookie class Gulf Coast League Red Sox last season, and has moved up to Greenville Drive of the A level South Atlantic League at the start of this season.  There are several outstanding young Canadians eligible for the draft again this year, including many from Alberta.  Hopefully Sox Canadian scout Chris Pritchett recommends some local talent.  

Also, a little late in reporting this, but former 1st round pick and Calgarian Chris Reitsma was recently inducted into the Alberta sports Hall of Fame.