Well, the Sox won again, but as the headline suggests that was not the big news. No, the big news was the fact that finally, in his sixteenth year in MLB, Manny Ramirez hit his 500th home run. Becoming the 24th player to reach the milestone, he drove the first pitch of the at bat well over the right center field wall into the cheap seats. However, he simultaneously became a member of a much more exclusive club. He is one of only seven players in MLB history to have 500 homers, a .300 lifetime BA, 1500 RBI's, 1,000 walks, and 475 two baggers. Of the other six, all but one, Frank Thomas, are in the Hall of Fame. Thomas, like Manny, is still playing, so he'll have to wait for his ticket to Cooperstown. In any event, that's pretty rare company. Way to go, Manny!
As for the game, the Sox were briefly behind twice early in the game, but came back each time to tie the score. Once the score was knotted at 3, the Sox took over and locked up the W, adding two runs in the 7th and the final score in the 8th.
Lester pitched a decent five, but gave up all the O's runs while striking out just four. He gave up the final O's run on a solo shot by Roberts. He was succeeded by Aardsma, who pitched two innings of perfect ball and got credit for the win in the process. Aardsma was succeeded in order by Oki and Pap, each for an inning of shutout ball, Oki getting his 11th Hold and Pap his 16th Save.
While the Hubhose got only nine hits, five of those were for extra bases, including three roundtrippers. One of those was the aforementioned shot by Manny, one was Papi's 13th and the other was a solo by Dusty in the 3d. Papi later sprained his wrist on a swing in the 9th and is day to day, but hopefully he'll be OK. It'd be a shame to lose him again now that he appears to be more or less out of his slump. Tonight's game also netted him a pair of ribbies, bringing his season total to 43. Manny's shot left him with 35 ribbies on the season.
Other positive highlights included Ellsbury's second consecutive game with three thefts. Tonight's trey puts him in the league lead in the category. His triple puts him in a tie for second in the league for triples, one behind the leader.
The series continues tomorrow at Camden Field, and hopefully, the results will be the same. The Sox have to get as many wins as possible, leading into their upcoming series at Fenway against the Rays.
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