Perfect homestand, sorta perfect Dice-K

The Red Sox won their getaway game, 11-8 over the Royals, capping a 7-0 homestand, thanks to grand slams from J.D. Drew and Mike Lowell. Daisuke Matsuzaka is now 8-0 with a 2.40 ERA, but he had another typical Dice-K start: 118 pitches in 5 2/3 innings. He walked six and had two wild pitches.

The team is cruising, but I am not without concern: Dice should be dominating, and the bullpen should be better. When you score 11 runs against the Royals, Jonathan Papelbon shouldn't be needed for a save, but he was because of shoddy middle relief (five runs in two innings from Craig Hansen and David Aardsma). Hansen's been a train wreck despite having one of the best sliders in the game. Aardsma gets a pass today because they were his first runs in a month (8 1/3 innings).

Oh well, onto the West Coast, where Manny has predicted he'll hit No. 500.

Phillies: Playing in the central time zone, the Phils beat the Astros, 7-5. Ryan Howard was 3-5 (single, double and homer) with three runs and two RBIs. Pat Burrell gave them the lead with a pinch-hit homer in the 8th. Brad Lidge was booed for every strike and cheered for every ball in the bottom of the 9th. The count went 2-0 on Kaz Matsui, and from the crowd reaction, you would have thought the Astros won the game. The anticipated match-up of Lidge vs. Lance Berkman ended after one pitch, a pop-up to So Taguchi to end the game. Lights out.