Red Sox 07 Game 36 Recap

Final

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Baltimore	2	0	0	0	1	0	1	1	0		5	8	2
Boston	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		6	7	3

• Hero - The entire offense which sent 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the 9th.
• Goat - C. Ray who blew another game against the Sox his third of the season.

As I was typing up this recap I originally had the hero as Jeremy Guthrie who was wheeling and dealing as the starting pitcher, 8 1/3 innings giving up only 3 hits and the 1 run (unearned) and J. Varitek as the goat due to his error in the first that led to two runs. Well, the ninth inning changed all that. What is that old saying about counting chickens? Any way, I decided to leave the post as it was originally written with any changes caused by the ninth being highlighted.

Idle thoughts

Josh Beckett only goes 4 innings today in getting his first loss of the year (oops his first no decision). Josh's problem was again in the first inning as he allowed a lead off walk to Roberts, quickly followed with a 1b by Markakis to become a 2 run inning (thanks in large part to the third error of the year by Varitek).

Beckett left due to an avulsion on his right middle finger. Avulsion, another fancy word for a tear in the skin. Hopefully this won't lead to any other long term problems. Post game every body during the news conference kept on stressing its a tear of the skin, not a blister.

Guthrie seems to be a find for the Orioles as he has now made two excellent starts in place of the injured Jaret Wright. Through seven innings he allowed 3 hits and no runs, throwing only 73 pitches. After eight innings he had the same hits and had thrown only 85 pitches. Two starts and two wins by the young rightie (oops a no decision as C Ray blows the game in the ninth).

The bull pen did an OK job as Snyder went 1 1/3 allowing one earned run (helped by his own errant throw on a pick off at second). Snyder was followed by J. Lopez who finished off the sixth inning with out allowing any other runs.

Pineiro struggled though allowing 4 hits, 2 BB's and 2 earned runs in 1 2/3 innings. His ERA is now a not so sparkling 4.40.

J Romero did OK with his 1 1/3 innings of 1 hit ball. This brings the bull pen total to 5 innings of work of six hit ball and 2 earned runs.

A little bit of excitement in the ninth as Guthrie got Lugo to ground out to short to start the inning. Then the O's made a crucial error on Crisp's pop up in the infield. That was the last of Guthrie and D Baez was summoned into the game. He lasted two batters as Ortiz smashed a double off the deep center field wall, just to the left of the camera stand scoring Crisp from first base. This was quickly followed by a single from Pena.

Ray then came into the game in the save situation and on 6 pitches he walked J.D. Drew. Bases loaded for one of the hottest players in the league, Kevin Youkilis who walked on a 3-2 count. Of course this brought up one of the worst batters in a bases loaded situation, J. Varitek (34 for 155) who on the first pitch hit a single to right advancing on the bobble by the fielders. 5 - 4 ball game.

IBB of Hinske, which will bring up the super sub of Alex Cora with the bases loaded who has an even worse average (8 of 54). Sure enough Cora failed hitting a ground ball to second that allowed Roberts to get the lead runner at home. It all rests on Lugo (23 of 76) who came through to win by hitting an infield single(?) no they scored it an error allowing Varitek and Hinske to score the tying and winning runs. Another series won by the Sox.

What a game.

As I was finishing up this post a quick check of the Yes network shows the spankees losing their second game in Seattle. Yankeeeeees LOOOOOOSE.