Could Youk Have Made the Difference? - Jenn

That'll be the question on the Nation's mind until Youkilis is back in the lineup. And as of this morning, we're still waiting to hear the 1st baseman's fate for today's 2nd game against the D-backs.

It was during warmups before the top of the 5th inning that Mike Lowell tossed Youk a routine grounder. Unfortunately last night was not routine and the ball bounced hitting Youkilis under the right eye. Within a matter of seconds his eye swelled up like a dinosaur egg and he was gone. Youk wanted to stay in the game as he always does, but with the swelling continuing at a mach pace, Francona wisely removed his first baseman from the game to get checked. The good news is the CT scan came back negative and it's just a contusion. The bad news, the only replacement the Sox had for Youkilis was rookie outfielder, Brandon Moss.

You may wonder why Moss, who Sox Nation is used to seeing play the outfield, was suddenly making his debut at first. Why wasn't it Casey? Well, turns out yesterday was the first day of Sean Casey's three-day suspension thanks to that brawl with Tampa Bay back on June 5th. So he was unavailable. Which meant the only person Francona had to put in there was the (no pun intended) green Moss.

Now to Moss' benefit he's recently been taking ground balls in the infield and was fielding at first in Triple-A so he does have some practice. But a few hundred ground balls in Triple-A does not a gold glove make. Since last night was his major league debut I'm sure Moss got caught up in making a good impression.

So in the 7th, with Reynolds on 3rd, Snyder hit a hard grounder at the first base newbie. Because Reynolds was at 3rd, Moss was probably thinking about the double play rather than just making a clean catch. In doing so, Moss bobbled the ball and while he was able to recover in time to get Snyder at 1st, Reynolds was able to score the Diamondback's 2nd run. And that would be all the Diamondbacks would need to win.

Dad says there's no guarantee that Youk would have gotten a hit. I agree. I also agree that Youk would have fielded that grounder cleanly and gotten Reynolds out at home. Too bad they haven't invented the time machine yet otherwise we could go back and find out. Unfortunately there is no time machine and this morning the D-backs have still taken game one.

So could Youk have made the difference? We'll never know. And now all Red Sox Nation can do is wait and see if the gold glover is back at his post tonight or if Moss will be standing there waiting for a chance to redeem himself.