Well, you'd think with Beckett pitching against someone entering the game with a six plus ERA that things would be easy for the Sox. That's what you'd think, but you'd be wrong. JB didn't pitch badly, but due to just a few bad pitches, he gave up six runs, all of them earned, raising his ERA to 4.67. However, he did get 9 K's against only a single walk in seven innings and his WHIP for the game was exactly 1.00--nothing to complain about at all. Now, if he'd just remember to leave the bad pitches back in BP, we'd be fine and he'd be on track for another year like 2007. Not that 5-3 is a bad record; I'm just wanting more. I'm spoiled, you see. It's like good food or good sex. Once you've had a taste, you crave more of the same and plenty of it.
Anyway, after seven, our heroes were up 11-6, so, barring a complete collapse by the bullpen, JB was assured of the W. Replaced for an inning by The Other Manny, Delcarmen, things got a tiny bit closer. TOM gave up a single run in his inning, the run coming off a pair of Brewer hits in the inning, but that still left our guys with at least a four run lead, more if we could add some insurance in the last half of the 8th, and The Saver, Papelbon coming on to close things out in the 9th.
As it turned out, the Hub Hose were unable to add anything to the score and Pap came in to close things out. Even though not a save opportunity due to score margin, it was almost vintage Papelbon. He threw a total of nine pitches, almost all of them above 90 mph--well above 90, in fact. Aside from a seeing eye single by the third batter he faced that somehow evaded Lowell at third, no-one had a chance. The first two hitters weakly popped to short locations in the outfield, and the final batter saw four pitches: 96 mph, 97, 90 and 95. The final strike was dropped and for a moment only the batter was aware of it, but by the time he'd steamed about halfway to first, Tek had recovered and thrown to Yoouk covering first and the guy was out, and so were the Brew Crew.
As for the power alluded to in the lead, forget about slumps now for the rest of the season! I suppose either Papi or Lowell could return to their hitting problems of last month, but, the way they're swinging the lumber now, I wouldn't mortgage my house and bet all of my money on it. Following Lowell's 5th shot of the season yesterday, Papi went 3-5, and all of his hits were for extra bases, including two bombs. He now has 10 on the season, leads the league (unless someone else picked up one today), and drove in four RBI's, giving him 37 for the season. Lowell went 1-4 today following yesterday's explosion, and Yoouk had a 3-5 day as well, with a two bagger and homer of his own included. Other 'rocket men' for the Sox were Pedroia and Varitek, the former dropping one in the cheaps as part of a 3-4 day, and the latter picking up his 11th two base hit of the '08 campaign as part of a 2-3 afternoon.
Overall, the Sox offense totaled 15 hits, six of them for extra bases. Lugo also stole a base, while Ellsbury was thrown out trying to steal, something that rarely happens.
Next Sox game will be on Tuesday and back in their own league, the AL. The inter league play will pick up again in a few weeks' time.
By the way, though this is a Sox blog, for you true down to the bottom of your soul Boston sports fans, no matter which team we're discussing, the Celtics won game seven today at the Garden and move to the conference finals for the first time in six years. I'm getting more and more ready for a Celtics-Lakers final, with the Green (who else) taking the trophy for the 17th time, extending their league record.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment