At the time, his home run didn’t seem any different from the others he had hit that summer. Josh Reddick lofted a pitch from Ross Detwiler, who one year later would be the sixth overall pick in the 2007 Major League Baseball draft, over the wall at Lassiter High School in Marietta, GA, on a summer day in mid-July of 2006.

While the scouts had come to watch Detwiler’s Team USA take on Reddick’s Georgia Collegiate All-Stars, the questions started circulating about the kid named Reddick. Reddick’s home run was the only run the All-Stars would get off of Team USA and Detwiler in a 14-1 rout that day.

Yet for Reddick, the final outcome was an afterthought. He went 3-for-5 against a team comprised of the best college players in the country. Scouts buzzed about the Red Sox’ still-unsigned 17th round draft pick.

Within minutes, Red Sox director of amateur scouting Jason McLeod was receiving phone calls from other MLB scouting directors suggesting that he sign Reddick before they got the chance to pursue him. While most scouts in attendance were cursing themselves at not noticing the skinny kid earlier, the Red Sox had nailed him.

Thanks in part to their detailed efforts to learn about a player who was unknown to most, the Sox worked out a deal with Reddick and signed him for $140,000 on August 8, just three weeks after that game and two days before he was to return to his team at Middle Georgia College.

“This kid was a raw junior college kid who (Red Sox scouts) dug out of nowhere,” said Mike Hazen, the Red Sox farm director. “It’s a true scouting story. It’s a true, good evaluation, a gut instinct signing.”

And so began the professional career of Josh Reddick. The 22-year-old rookie was called back up to the Red Sox on Wednesday, his third call-up of the year. That is three more trips to the majors – with more to come – than nearly anyone expected during an amateur career spent in obscurity. His is the story of a player who in three years has come from a small junior college to a growing role in the future of one of the most storied franchises in baseball.

‘YOU JUST HAVE TO KEEP WATCHING’ Read the rest of this entry »

PAWTUCKET — Paul Byrd sat in the Paw Sox dugout in the first contest of a day-night doubleheader in which he was starting the night game against the Rochester Red Wings. He high-fived manager Ron Johnson in the clubhouse and certainly seemed eager to get back on the mound.

The Red Sox signed Byrd to a minor-league contract on August 5 in hopes that he could get in shape in time to help the team down the stretch. After two outings in the Rookie Level Gulf Coast League, Byrd moved up to Triple-A Pawtucket to face advanced competition for the first time on Wednesday.

His line of four innings giving up three runs on six hits while walking one and striking out three (in a 5-1 loss, the PawSox’ ninth straight defeat) doesn’t tell the entire story of the outing. Byrd’s main goal was to get a feel for the ball and move his pitches around the strike zone. By and large, he did that, throwing 49 of his 74 pitches for strikes. Two of his three strikeouts came on his slider.

“The most important thing is that I’m commanding pitches,” Byrd said. ”What I mean by that is I can throw the ball to both sides of the plate, slider both sides, I have good command on my changeup and I can keep it down. Those things are what’s really important to me. I hung my slider here and there but overall I felt really really good.”

Byrd pitched a 1-2-3 first inning on five pitches, four of which were strikes, before he ran into some trouble in the second. After a leadoff double by left fielder Justin Huber, Byrd gave up a single and a walk to load the bases before a double from DH Trevor Plouffe scored two runs. Byrd settled down with three straight outs, ending the inning with a strikeout on a fastball to leadoff hitter Matt Tolbert to conclude a 10-pitch battle of an at-bat.

“I thought the slider was pretty good,” Byrd said. “It wasn’t as sharp as I’d like it to be but I got some big strikeouts on it and in the second inning the leadoff hitter bothered me, I went 0-2 on him, and I tried to throw a slider in. It started in but ended up over the middle and he hit it down the line. That’s the one pitch that will cost me a couple hours of sleep, it’ll bother me a little bit. Overall I threw a lot of good quality pitches.”

Byrd had a similar third inning. After a fly out to right, he gave up a double to catcher Jose Morales and a single to left off of Huber that scored Morales from second. Once again he settled down for two straight outs with a fly out to left field and a strikeout on an offspeed pitch. Byrd came out in the fourth with two groundouts before giving up a single to center off the bat of Dustin Martin. He then hit Tolbert but got Steven Tolleson to fly out to center to conclude his night.

Three of the six hits off of Byrd came on his fastball, which hovered around 86-87 mph and topped out at 89 mph. He mixed in his slider and changeup, garnering six outs on fly balls against three on the ground.

While Byrd received the loss, he was happy with the outing and confident that he could be ready for the Red Sox in the near future.

“I feel good. Today was a big step for me because I needed to see that my fastball was good enough,” Byrd said. “There were a lot of swings and misses, there were a lot of missed hits, there were a lot of foul balls where they were out in front and then I beat them in a lot. So I needed to see that I wasn’t going to be throwing batting practice and that my fastball had life because there’s 85, 86 mph that leaves the park and there’s 85,86 mph that is sneaky and it cuts and sinks and guys can’t figure it out. I needed to see that I still had that and I felt for the most part I did.”

Byrd could conceivably pitch two more outings before the September 1 date for expanded rosters. By then, he hopes to reach a pitch count in the 90s while further refining his slider. The Sox will certainly welcome the help if Byrd can pull out another decent outing before they hit the home stretch leading up to the playoffs.

“When you see experience at that level of what this guy has done in his career it’s fun to watch,” Pawtucket manager Johnson said. “Hopefully a lot of our young guys were watching, especially during the innings when he gave up the runs because (he had) the calmness, the maturity, the consistency to make pitches to stay in certain areas. He bent a little bit but you didn’t see all of the sudden the game speed up or him serve one up and a guy crush one. I never got the feeling we were going to be in a situation where we would give up massive amounts of runs and that’s what veteran major league players do.”

PAWTUCKET — Byrd went four innings giving up three runs on six hits, walking one with three strikeouts. He finished with 74 pitches, 49 of which were strikes. Byrd was shaky with runners on base, and most hits were off his fastball, which sat right around 86 mph.

There may be veteran help on the horizon in the form of pitching for the Red Sox. No, it might not be Tim Wakefield or even Daisuke Matsuzaka. It’s Paul Byrd.

Byrd will take the mound tonight for the Pawtucket Red Sox after throwing two outings for the Gulf Coast Red Sox in hopes of being ready for Boston by September 1 when rosters expand.

“I think, and this is just me thinking, that I will be need to be ready for September 1,” Byrd said. ”It won’t be profitable for them and they’ll let me go and I understand that. So it’s just a rush job for me getting ready but honestly my arm hasn’t had this much time off without a surgery in forever, so I feel strong. I feel great and ready to go.”

Byrd said he had no indication the Sox were interested in him and had planned on sitting out the rest of the season until the team called in early August.

“I think they got into a situation where some guys got hurt,” Byrd said. “They thought they were getting better but they weren’t sure they were getting better, so I was sort of an insurance policy to see what happens and see if I could get out there on time and see if I still had what it took.”

Byrd pitched last season with the Red Sox after the team acquired him from the Cleveland Indians on August 12, after he had cleared waivers. In eight starts with Boston, Byrd went 4-2 over 49 innings, walking 10 and striking out 26 en route to a 4.78 ERA.

He declined the Sox’ offer of arbitration, did not sign with Boston or any other club and instead opted to spend time with his wife and two kids with the idea of joining a team mid-season. Byrd, however, had no takers. Once the Sox determined a need for pitching help, they signed Byrd to a minor league contract on August 5 and sent him to Florida to build up strength and regain his form.

“It was one of those things where I figured I’d sit out and pick up with a team later in the season and it would all work out,” Byrd said “Then I realized I’m not Roger Clemens and the economy messed up some things so people were interested but not real interested. I just kept throwing to my 13-year-old’s baseball team and having fun and then the Red Sox called and asked how quick I could be ready. So, I’m here to find out.”

Byrd pitched two outings in Florida for a combined 7 innings giving up four runs and striking out three. PawSox manager Ron Johnson expects Byrd to pitch five to six innings or 75 to 80 pitches tonight against the Rochester Red Wings.

“My body is a little behind my arm’s conditioning a little bit,” the righthander said. “I’ve been working out. I’ve been doing some conditioning, not to the same intensity level that you do when you’re playing but most people are a little run down in September. I feel pretty darn good.”

A fresh veteran arm with playoff experience could be a welcome sight for the Sox in September as they fight for a playoff spot. The Sox face a tough schedule next month with two series against the Rays, and one each against the White Sox, Yankees and Angels. Somewhat surprisingly, Byrd may swoop in to become one piece of the puzzle missing for the Sox.

Jason Bay is back.

While it’s only been three games since he returned to the Red Sox lineup — following the four games he missed last week while resting a sore hamstring — Bay has shown no signs of returning to the slump that maligned him over the prior two months.

The Sox left fielder cranked a home run into the Monster Seats in the third inning Wednesday night, putting the Sox up 3-0 over the Tigers. Bay’s homer was his third in as many nights and his fourth in five games. 

“Jason Bay looks like he’s trying to get hot again,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. “When Jason gets hot it’s not just singles, he’s driving the ball all over the ballpark and what a different team we look like.”

Bay went 3-for-3 with two doubles and two walks Wednesday after a 2-for-4 night on Tuesday highlighted by his game-tying, three-run homer in the second off rookie Chris Lambert. The last time Bay had consecutive multi-hit games was in mid-June.

For the last two months Bay had been stuck in a horrific slump. After finishing April with a .324 average and five home runs, his average dipped twenty points in May, even though his power doubled en route to 10 home runs in just 28 games. Everything went downhill from there. Bay batted .230 in June and .192 in July with only five home runs during that two-month span.

Yet Bay has broken out in the six games he’s played in August, and now sports a seven-game hit streak dating back to the July 31 trading deadline.

“When you’re good, you’re good and when you’re bad, you’re bad,” Bay said. “There’s streakiness and I guess this would be defined as that. It’s only been three games [back since the hamstring] but I feel  a lot better; much more comfortable in the box. When you’re not comfortable you’re searching, trying to move your feet a little bit. You’re trying this, you’re trying that, trying to find the magical little tweak because most of the time it’s nothing major.

“You’re trying to find that one little thing that keys it off for you and you start using those as an excuse rather than just hitting the ball. I was trying everything and the last few days are really the first time I haven’t really been trying, I’ve been lettting it come to me.”

Bay was just starting to get hot when he cramped up his hamstring while running out a grounder last week in Tampa Bay. A home run he hit in that game helped him regain his swing. Yet the Red Sox then went without Bay for the final game in Tampa and three of the four games in New York.

“In Tampa I had the home run in the first or second inning,” Bay said, “that was the first time in a while I saw a pitch and I reacted and everything ended up where it was supposed to be. The result was there, whether it was a home run or a fly ball, it kind of felt uninhibited. I didn’t force anything. I wasn’t trying to make something happen. It’s very hard when everyone wants answers; it’s very hard to quantify. I can’t tell you my leg’s getting late or I’m lunging, that’d be much easier. I kind of lost a feel there.”

Regardless of what happened. Bay seems to be returning to the form he maintained for the first two months of the year. For the Sox, the timing couldn’t be better as they look to continue their sudden reversal of fortune. 

“I understand I’m not the only part of this offense, but I can be a big part of this offense,” said Bay. “It’s a luxury when a couple guys aren’t going well, we have somebody that can hit who takes pressure off everyone else.”

Kevin Youkilis sat in the Red Sox dugout with about a half dozen children from his charity Hits for Kids before Wednesday’s game. He took the hardest question of the afternoon from one of the youngsters.

“Are you playing tonight?” asked the youngster. Youkilis explained that his five-game suspension stemming from last night’s brawl with rookie pitcher Rick Porcello prevented him from playing tonight and the next four games.

Youkilis then spoke to the media explaining his appeal of the suspension.

“Basically I left everything in the hands of the front office and Tito and whatever they thought was best for the team was good for me,” Youkilis said.

“I don’t really have an opinion on [the five games]. It is what it is and you just have to move forward. Hopefully these next couple days will be quick,” Youkilis added.

Youkilis hoped to just get the five games over with as soon as possible especially with the Red Sox current two-game win streak.

“I never thought basically that all this would come about but it is what it is and I have to deal with it,” Youkilis said. “[The suspension] will go quick and hopefully the guys pull together and stay on a nice little streak here.

Asked if he would do anything differently last night, Youkilis once again remarked he hoped his actions didn’t influence the kids.

“I don’t have any regrets other than, like I said before, about the kids. The kids I work with and my charity and just telling them it’s not the right thing to do. There comes a point in your life where it takes so much and when people don’t do things in the right manner you kind of get fed up with it and you have to do what you have to do in life to protect yourself. I take one ball in the eye or anything like that and my career could be over and I take a lot of pride in this career.

He went on to speak about the Sox as one of the teams that has hit the most opponents this season.

“I think we’re getting hit a lot too. I think I’m in the top five in getting hit by pitches. I don’t think there’s any complaint there. People want to say we’re hitting guys, I can’t say we’ve probably hit more opponents than I’ve been hit all year.

Youkilis didn’t have an answer as to why he is hit so often.

“The past few days there’s been a reason. I can’t say there’s always a reason. You sometimes get hit by pitches that are curveballs or sliders that hit you and there isn’t intent but sometimes there is intent. It’s unfortunate. It tends to happen more in the American League than the National League. That’s probably just how the game is. It probably won’t ever change in the American League.

As for getting hit because he is currenlty one of the top hitters on the team and in the League Youkilis was skeptical.

“I don’t know. It’s only my fourth season starting so I really haven’t been around more than some other players that have had some success. Derek Jeter and I always joke around about how much I get hit. If that was the correlation that’d be nice, I guess, because Derek Jeter is a pretty good player.

He said the argument that he leans over the plate doesn’t amount to why he is hit so often.

“I disagree with the whole I’m over the plate the whole time. When you’re taking the first pitch you’re just standing there, you’re not leaning into a pitch. When you’re diving you might get that sometimes but if you’re not diving I don’t know. Guys have to pitch inside and you’re going to get hit but to me it’s all about the timing and intent.

“I don’t think I’m surprised I got five. I think you can read into it why there’s only five. I’ve never done anything like this before and hopefully I never have to do it ever again.”

A good dose of home cooking was what the doctor ordered for the Red Sox last night. The Sox will look to stretch their winning streak to two games with rookie Rick Porcello on the mound tonight.

The 20-year-old Porcello will face the Sox for the second time this season. His last start against the Sox on June 2 in Detroit resulted in a 5-1 loss for the Tigers with Porcello going 4.1 innings, giving up eight hits and three runs. Porcello had strung together five consecutive wins in the month of May before that loss. In his two starts this month, Porcello has gone eight innings and 5.2 innings, respectively, only giving up a total of eight hits on three runs in the two appearances.

Junichi Tazawa takes the mound for the Sox tonight in his first career MLB start. Tazawa was inserted into the rotation in place of John Smoltz, who was designated for assignment last week. The 23-year-old took one for the team in his major league debut last Friday in the 15-inning loss to the Yankees. Tazawa only threw about 35 pitches on Friday. He is looking to keep the spot warm until Tim Wakefield returns to the rotation.

RICK PORCELLO VS. RED SOX

J.D. Drew (3 plate appearances against Porcello): 2-for-3, 1 RBI

Victor Martinez (3): 0-for-2, 1 BB

Dustin Pedroia (3): 1-for-3

Kevin Youkilis (3): 0-for-2, 1 BB

Jason Bay (2): 1-for-2, 1 homer, 2 RBI, 1 SO

Jacoby Ellsbury (2): 2-for-2

Nick Green (2): 0-for-2

Mike Lowell (2): 0-for-2, 1 SO

David Ortiz (2): 1-for-2

Jason Varitek (2): 1-for-2

JUNICHI TAZAWA VS. TIGERS

No Tigers player has faced Tazawa