Well, after we lost the finale of the Chisox series yesterday in a close one, 4-2, and another game in the standings to the Rays, today the O's came to town. Now that they've helped the Rays for the past three games, it's the Sox turn. Recently acquired Paul Byrd was on the hill for the Sox, and gave up a quick shot to the O's Jones, on the first pitch he saw. The Sox responded with back-to-back homers in the 2d, Tek and Bailey doing the honors. Unfortunately, Byrd gave up another solo shot to Castro in the 3d, tying the score.
After the O's took the lead again in the 6th, 3-2, the Sox finally put things in gear and ended the ongoing BS. Starting with consecutive doubles by Bay and Lowrie, they tied the game. After that, the Sox loaded the sacks, sandwiched around an RBI single by Coco, setting up another classic moment for Pedroia. Dusty didn't disappoint. Lining a hit into right, he plated another pair of runs, making the Sox lead, 6-3, and, as it turned out, accounting for the winning runs.
This latest by Dusty is just a continuation of the great stuff he's done since joining the team in 2007 and taking home the AL Rookie-of-the-Year hardware. His game winning hit was his 184th hit of the year, breaking the Sox record for hits in a season by a second sacker set in 1922 by Del Pratt. Eightysix years--wasn't there something else the Sox did for the first time in 86 years recently? YEAH!--2004's Championship!!
As if that weren't enough for the Sox sparkplug, the 33 runs he scored in August were the most by a Sox player since 1950--58 years--when both Dom DiMaggio (Joe's little brother) and Billy Goodman each racked up 35 in a month. Of course, their totals are understandable once you remember that they were hitting in front of not one, but TWO Hall of Famers--couple of guys named Williams and Doerr, not to mention another perennial All-Star at short, Junior Stephens. Pedroia's runs were a part of a .374 BA for the month. So far after one day in September, he's batting .500 for the new month and added another run scored. Guess he's looking for a shot at beating 35 in a month. He's also leading the lead in the race for the silver bat awarded annually to the league batting champion. Also in contention for that prize is another member of the Sox--Yooouk! In addition to his lead in the batting race, Dusty is 1st in the league in hits, 3d in doubles and leading the league in runs scored.
Looking at the work from the mound today, after Byrd's seven innings, three of the four runs charged to him coming on solo shots (including one by a former member of the Sox, Kevin Millar), the Sox bullpen came on and closed the door. Lopez came in and tossed a perfect 8th, needing just a dozen pitches to close out the inning--didn't even allow a ball out of the infield. Then, as always, the Sox closer, Papelbon, better known to regular followers of this blog as The Laserman, came in and slammed the door--another inning of shutout ball. LMan did give up a couple of harmless hits, but when you don't allow any free passes, keep the hits to relatively harmless singles and allow no runs, the results are usually the same--Game Over! In the process, Pap lowered his ERA to 1.68 and took his opponents' BA below the Mendoza Line at .199.
Net result of all of this: Sox picked up a half game each on idle Rays and Twinkies, leaving them behind the Rays by 5 and ahead of the Twinkies in the wild card by 3, with 25 to play. Oh, yes--the Stripes--Mr. Hankie's Yankees won today over the Tigers and managed to remain a full seven to the rear of our heroes.
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