Pap, Nap, Sizemore & Pedey Lead Sox to Victory

Sounds almost like a law firm: Pap, Nap, Sizemore and Pedey. But no case here of Dewey, Cheetum and Howe here! Tonight's game was won by a solid combo of Sox bats and, for the most part, shut down hurling from the pen.  In the former case, the Hose had, in spite of mid-game lack of timely hitting, followed the lead of the aforementioned batsmen to first build a lead of three to one that held until the 8th, and then, finally in the 12th, get a quick string of hits to walk off with a W.  Although the Sox overall pen work was shutdown, and in the cases of Badenhop and Miller even perfect, the Reds made everyone in the Fens tonight start to sweat as Taz was reached for enough baserunners to allow the tying runs and earn a rare BS for himself.  While this was transpiring, our Hub Heroes were constantly leaving men on base and frustrating the Hell out of this observer.  Not to worry, though. After our resident Yalie held the Redlegs scoreless in the top of the 12th, grabbing a pair of K's while allowing a lone single that just cleared a leaping Dustman's glove, the Sox came to the plate. Someone must have figured that this had gone on long enough.  I mean although the pay in MLB is excellent by any standard, the guys don't earn overtime, and the game was now over four hours old. Papi led off with a sharp single past a diving second sacker, the ball cutting into the outfield almost surgically in its line to the grass. Nap followed him to the dish and, bingo--another hit and men on first and second. Up comes Sizemore, he of the injury-lost last couple of years, and with one solid swing of the club, the game was over. He banged one off the Monster right between two Reds outfielders. Normally a double, when he saw it hit the wall, knowing that he had driven in Papi with the winner, he quit his dash toward second, costing himself the two bagger and settling for a single, just so he could more quickly join Nap in a game winning hug in mid-infield. As for Pedey, oh, yes. All he did was once again show what Mariano Rivera (see my earlier post today) was talking about. As Mo said, there's never a time when Pedroia isn't trying as hard as he possibly can to win the game; always aggressive and on the attack to help the Sox walk away fists clenched in victory. Tonight he played his usual killer second base and at the plate, went 3-5 with a pair of ringing two baggers. In fact, the second of these was his 200th of his career, another trophy to place alongside his 100th homer and 100th swipe of his career. As noted when he got there last week, he is now second only in Sox history, along with Yaz, in having at least 100 of each, homers and steals. Can't be too many guys in Hose History with those stats and the additional one of 200 dubs.  In fact, once again it's Yaz that he shares this lofty position with.