The new Bruins Stanley Cup Champions t-shirts are in!

This is a limited edition design and we’ve printed it on mens, womens and kids tees so everyone can celebrate the Bruins 6th Stanley Cup Championship!

Thanks to tone of pre-orders, we’ve already started running out of select sizes, so click the images below to get a shirt before we sell out!

MENS & KIDS

WOMENS

The Red Sox have won straight games. During that run, they swept the Yankees in The Bronx, outscoring the New York 25 to 13 and tattooed the Blue Jays 35 to 6 during a 3-game sweep in Toronto.

That’s 60 runs in 6 games… or 10 runs per game. It also puts them at 5.4 runs per game on the year. For comparison, the the leader in runs scored over the past few years has hovered around 900 runs. That works out to 5.5 runs per game…

We can’t expect the Red Sox to average 10 runs per game all season, but after a slow start, the offense finally looks like Juggernaut we were all hoping for back in March.

The Red Sox currently lead the majors in runs scored with 350 (NYY has 330, CIN has 329). They also lead the majors in batting average at .276 (STL .274, CHC .266) and rank second in home runs with 77 (NYY is 1st with 95, MIL/ARZ are 3rd with 76).

Carl Crawford, Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia got off to slow starts, but Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz carried the offense while they worked the kinks out and Jacoby Ellsbury has looked impressive in the leadoff spot after a lost 2010 season.

The move to the American league hasn’t slowed down A-Gon. He leads the AL in batting average at .341 BA and RBIs with 60. With just one homer in April, he’s behind the pack in that category, but he hit 9 in May and 3 already in June, so he should be among the leaders by the All Star break. He also leads to majors in doubles with 22, thanks to the Green Monster, but that’s exactly what we where hoping for – right?

With Gonzalez acting as the new Manny, David Ortiz has found his stroke again. Big Papi is hitting .325 on the year and ranks 4th in the majors with 17 ding dongs. He’s also denting the Monster again and ranks among the leaders with 18 doubles. But the most encouraging stat is the K-rate. Ortiz has only whiffed 28 times in 237 at-bats. Compare that to A-Gon’s 49/267 split or Youk’s 54/212 split and you can see that Ortiz is locked in right now.

Lastly, or firstly if you will, is Jacoby Ellsbury. Skeptics and doubters lurked in every corner of Beantown this offseason while Ellsbury rehabbed from a rib injury that stole his 2010 season, but Jacoby has silenced the critics. With a fresh legs and a chip on his shoulder, Ellsbury is killing the competition with power and speed. He’s quietly smacked 7 homers and driven in 33 runs from the leadoff spot and his .318 BA ranks 13th in the majors. The OPS (.853) and K-rate (45/264) could be better, but he’s getting it done at the top, and with an AL leading 24 steals, he’s wreaking havoc on the base paths again.

Bottom Line: The Red Sox are crushing the competition right now and own the best record in the in AL at 39-26 (.600). It looked ugly at the start, but if the season ended today, The Sox and Phillies would be the two best teams in the league… with the Sox winning on offense and the Phillies winning with pitching.

Could be a fun World Series…

As you guys know, we’re always looking for new t-shirt design ideas from the fans. We take design submissions through the DESIGN CHALLENGE page, post images and let you guys vote on which design you like best.

With baseball in full swing and months of summer still to come, our buddy Ian from the Sox & Dawgs blog sent us a cool Carl Crawford idea:

“CRAWSOME”

A simple, but good idea. And a hashtag that’s been gaining popularity on Twitter…

Carl got off to a rough start in his first month as a Red Sox, but he went on a tear in May… piling walk off RBIs and multi-hit games. Crawford is looking more and more like the guy the Red Sox paid 140 million bucks for…

Click the image above to rate this design. If you guys like it, we”ll print a batch and Ian will win some cool stuff, but we want to see a good collection of votes, so share this link with your friends on Facebook and Twitter and help us spread the word about this CRAWSOME new t-shirt design!

Feel free to leave comments here on the blog as well.

~ Rob

We saw John #1 early in the night with this sweet “Red Sox OK” t-shirt designed locally by one of his friends… pretty cool, no?

But we met John #2 later that and he was rocking this sweet vintage Larry Bird t-shirt from the 1986 3-point contest. I love vintage items like this and John is actually a collector of this sort of thing, so we had to give him the “T-shirt of the Night” award.

Look for me and the Bottom Line Apparel stand in Kenmore after every Red Sox game and grab some t-shirts at discounted “street prices.” I’m always looking for cool t-shirts like these, so stop by and say hi when you see me.

~ Rob

After a horrific April (11-15), the Red Sox have been baseball’s best team in May (17-6, .696 W%) and now sit a 1/2 game out of 1st place in the AL East with the 3rd best record in the AL at 27-22.

For a little perspective, the Sox were 33-15 and 11 games up on the 2nd place Blue Jays at this time back in 2007 – the last time the won a World Series. And last season, they were 27-21 at this time and 5.5 games behind the 1st place Rays.

Bottom Line: Before this season started, the Red Sox were the favorite to win the AL and many predicted a World Series Championship. With just over a quarter-season in the books, the Sox still are starting to look like the team we expected, but they’re lucky that no one ran ahead of them while they struggled through April.

But “that’s why you play the games,” right? So with that in mind, here’s a quick look at how one month changed everything for the Red Sox:

Adrian Gonzalez finished April hitting .314, but had just 1 homer and 15 RBI in 105 ABs. He owned the 2nd best BA on the team behind Jed Lowrie (.368, 68 AB) and the drop off was huge after that: JD Drew was 3rd at .269, David Ortiz was 4th at .267, Kevin Youkilis was hitting .218 and Carl Crawford was hitting .155.

Gonzo is leading the team in May as well with a .367 BA, but he exploded for 8 ding dongs, 6 doubles and 28 RBI. Jose Bautista is light years of the pack in homers with 19, but Gonzo leads the majors with 43 RBI and if 5th in BA at .340. He’s also logged 50 more at ABs than the BA leaders ahead of him, which makes him the most likely Triple Crown Threat in the bunch, in my not so humble opinion.

Carl Crawford is the other big story. Things looked very bad for C.C. in April, but he’s hitting .308 in May with 2 HR, 5 2B, 3B, 10 RBI and 16 runs scored. It will take a miracle for Carl to finish 2011 at .300, but if he hits around .300 the rest of the way, he’ll finish at a respectable .285.

Other notable achievements include David Ortiz’ .337 BA and 8 HRs in May. Those numbers make him the team leader in HRs (10) and the 3rd most productive hitter in the lineup behind behind Gonzo and Kevin Youkilis. Youk’s still striking out too much (17 in May), but he’s hit .333 with 3 HR, 7 2B, 3B and 17 RBI in 75 ABs this month, getting hom back to .275 on the year with 8 dingers and 32 RBI. Overall the Sox have six batters hitting over .300 this month and that doesn’t include Marco Scutaro (.400, 15 AB) or Drew Sutton (.333, 9 AB).

Oh… and Salty has 4 homers and a .265 BA.

As for the pitching, April wasn’t quite as bad for the pitchers as it was for the offense, but with starters logging 10+ starts, it’s safe to start looking at the stats.

Josh Beckett has been great. He’s not as overpowering as he was back in 2007 and he’s been robbed of a few wins along the way, but he leads the the AL with a 1.69 ERA and is 3rd in the majors with one more start than Josh Johnson (1.64) and 2 more than Jair Jurrjens (1.56). He’s not going the post 200 Ks this season, but if he keeps this up, he won’t need to. Jon Lester on the other hand… has 70 Ks on the year and a 7-1 record in 11 starts. Six shoutout innings yesterday gave him a 3.36 ERA on the season and he looks poised to make another run at the Cy Young Award… although Felix Hernandez will be hanging around with equal ERA and K numbers and a .500 record… again.

Clay Buchholz might be the pitching story of May. After a 1-3, 5.33 April, Buchhy is 3-0 with a 1.79 ERA in five May starts. He’s limiting the walks and inducing groundballs again… and 26 Ks in 33 innings ain’t bad either.

We lost twos starters in May, but Tim Wakefield looked good filling in. John Lackey is on the mend and that means Alfredo Aceves will go back to the bullpen – where he belongs IMO. That should help stabilize a bullpen that has become the Achilles heel of this team. Papelbon is earning his saves, but he remains a bit of a roller coaster ride. Daniel Bard has been tough to watch lately. And Matt Albers, Scott Atchison, Franklin Morales and Rich Hill currently round out the bullpen.

I can live with that for now, but it scares me to think that we may have to lean on those guys for some big wins in September…

Bottom Line: May has been good to us. We’re back in the mix and the weather’s getting nice. Time to put the petal to the metal boys.

Hot of the press!

Get the new Boston Bruins “We Want The Cup!” t-shirt now in the online store.

GO BRUINS!

Everybody likes free stuff, right?

Well, I found a $25 giftcard to Game On! at Fenway that I had forgotten about, so…

We’re going to run a contest. If you buy any product from the Bottom Line Apparel online store between now and Friday May 20th you will be entered to win the $25 giftcard.

We’ll pick a random winner at 4:00 PM on Friday.

Get one of our new Bruins playoff t-shirts… or any of our Red Sox tees… or grab one of our cool decals for your car for just $3.99, and you could win 25 bucks – FREE.

These days, we could all use some free money, right? You could keep this news to yourself and make it easier to win, but do me a solid and share this link with your peeps on Facebook and Twitter… when you spread the love, you help us make more cool stuff!

~ Rob

A while back we showed you a new t-shirt design by local artist Tara Cassidy. I met Tara on Friend St. before a Celtics game and told her about our new design challenge. She submitted her Celtic Tree design, the fans voted, and we printed a batch of shirts with her design and name on the back.

Check out her Celtic Tree t-shirt in the online store HERE for details on how to submit your design.

New England is home to the best sports teams in the world, the best fans in the world and tons of great artists and designers. Our mission is to bring those people together to create unique t-shirts and products that you’ve never seen before. Designs like Tara’s Celtic Tree, Micheal Weinstein’s Celtics Shamrock and Sean Husband’s Fear the Speed designs.

Share our link with your friends and help us bring sports and art together to create some cool new t-shirts!

~ Rob

Back in late April the Red Sox won 8 of 9 against Toronto, Oakland and LA. The offense wasn’t clicking on all cylinders, but the pitching was otherworldly and with a 14 games against Baltimore, Seattle, LA and Minnesota, it looked like they’d be in the middle of a 3-team race atop the AL East by mid-May.

Well… It’s May 13th and the Sox are 4.5 games behind the Rays and 3 games below .500. They went 7-6 on the home stand, but let’s face it – they choked. They had a chance to beat up on some bad teams and they choked.

But this weekend could be a turning point for the 2011 Red Sox.

The bitterness of the Red Sox v Yankees rivalry isn’t what it used to be, but the Spx have a chance to prove something to their fans this weekend. A sweep in The Bronx is unlikely, but if it happened, they’d hit .500 for the first time this season and move within a 1/2 game of the Yankees for 2nd place in the East. It’s only May, and no one is running away with this division… but in my opinion, this is an important series.

Bruins fans were hesitantly optimistic heading into the playoffs this spring after last season… and the B’s stepped up with a gutsy performance against Montreal and a shellacking of the Flyers in the “Redemption Match.” It’s time for this Red Sox to show us a little something and it starts this weekend.

Ellsbury(.340, 4 2B, 6 SB in May) and Gonzalez (.362, 6 HR, 14 RBI) are hot. Crawford (.356) and Youk (.294) appears to have turned the corner. And y we’ve got Buchholz and Beckett going in game 1 and 2. We’ll need quality pitching AND some offense to sweep the Yanks, but I’d be happy with two wins before a 7-game home stand next week.

Bottom Line: Last time we played the Yankees, Dustin Pedroia went off (.692, 3 2B, HR, 4 RBI, 4 R). I’m thinking this is just what Pedey needs to snap out of his current funk… and when Pedey gets hot, good things happen.

We’re re-stocked and ready for Round 2 against the Miami Heat. Game 1 is set for Sunday, so get the Boston Celtics Shamrock t-shirt now! Available in mens sizes (green) and ladies cut (green & white).

Buy now in the online store.

Go Celtics!