american league baseball

BOSTON -- In the last 40 regular-season games at Fenway Park, two young Boston Red Sox pitchers have now thrown no-hitters. "I hope," said Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, "our fans don't come to think of this as a rite of passage for all of our young pitchers."

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Being a catcher under Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia is kind of like playing point guard for Larry Brown. The expectations are immense, but they're not necessarily what the casual fan might expect.

BOSTON -- He was a 21-year-old prospect in the Cleveland Indians' organization and was a September call-up when he made former Yankees pitchers Melido Perez and Paul Gibson his first two victims on that day in the Bronx, which just happens to be Manny Ramirez's hometown.

The Boston Red Sox have basically completed one-quarter of the season. They have Thursday off as an opportunity to lick their wounds and assess their M*A*S*H issues after a disappointing 4-6 trip through Detroit, Minnesota and Baltimore that finished with four losses in a row and five in the last six games.

It should be easy to hate the Boston Red Sox. They've got it all -- baseball's most ambient ballpark, rich and aggressive owners, a savvy front office, a storied fan base that includes an appreciative old guard and the entitled new guard, and two World Series sweeps in four years.

PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Boston Red Sox infielder Alex Cora made a bold prediction here Saturday night at McCoy Stadium. He had just completed his three-game rehab stint with the Class AAA PawSox when he deemed pitcher Bartolo Colon ready to contribute in Boston. Not only contribute, but also make a huge impact.

If Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders had written "How I Spent My Winter Vacation" essays in spring training, there's a good chance the line "perfecting my pitches so I'm not the odd man out" would have been in both compositions.

Fueled by rumors that have been either denied or called misinterpretations, the topic of the day is whether the Mariners should try to bring Ken Griffey Jr. back to Seattle. Why not? With only 15,000 or so in the Safeco Field stands, who's left to object?In fact, why stop at Griffey?

Emil Brown's career arc did not suggest that he had this kind of start in him, nor did it suggest that the Athletics would be all that interested in him to benefit from it. He did possess the A's-ian values of being available, well traveled and inexpensive, true, but he didn't seem to quite fit the Oakland mold.

DETROIT -- Jim Leyland wasn't a happy man when his Detroit Tigers broke spring training. He hasn't been a happy man since. He isn't a happy man now. But he's working on it.