All is Well Until the 6th Inning

It was looking real good,  like Wedding Crashers before the sappy, terribly drawn out ending.  John Smoltz was cruising in Texas and making good on the promise he made in mid-June about his arm not being finely tuned until his fifth or sixth start, and then three very quick home-run's later, the Rangers had six runs.

His last outing was easily his most impressive of the year, albeit against the Kansas City Royals, and tonight's looked to be a close second, but the Texas bats just exploded in the sixth inning scoring five runs.  

David Murphy looked like he was hitting a Titleist, which makes that home-run less John Smoltz's faults and more Isaac Newton's, but the Michael Young blast he left up in the zone.

Overall Smoltz had some filthy stuff going on tonight.  The back door cutter he through to punch out former teammate Andruw Jones was disgusting, and his split finger was extremely effective through the first five innings.  

While obviously a discouraging loss, the Sox shouldn't be too worried heading into tomorrow's matchup with Josh Beckett on the hill facing Tommy Hunter, a young right-handed pitcher.