Red Sox 7, Devil Rays 4
Another night, another exhilarating victory by the hometown team in the Fens. Yours truly had a front-row seat in the shiny new State Street Pavilion for the action and I can report that the latest Fenway redesign represents yet another seamless upgrade to baseball’s most romanticized venue.
For much of the game, it was an old fashioned pitcher’s duel. Matt Clement came out and looked a helluva lot better than he did last Thursday night against Toronto, going seven innings, yielding eight hits and two walks while striking out six. The only damage Tampa Bay inflicted on Clement came by way of consecutive hits from the first three hitters of the seventh inning. Ty Wigginton, who is turning out to be a valuable off-season acquisition for the Rays, homered to start the seventh and Toby Hall and Tomas Perez followed with consecutive doubles to give Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead.
For his part, Casey Fossum showed the form that once made him too much to give up for Bartolo Colon. Through six, Fossum had encountered little in the way of trouble. He wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam in the second and surrendered back-to-back doubles to David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez in the third, but other than that it was relatively smooth sailing for Fossum.
The same cannot be said, however, for the Tampa Bay bullpen. Scott Dunn, Shawn Camp, Ruddy Lugo and Chad Orvella combined to surrender five hits and five earned runs in an inning and two thirds. Dunn also allowed Fossum’s inherited runner to score.
A quiet game through six and a half innings turned pretty wild in the bottom of the seventh. With men on first and third and one out, Mark Loretta singled sharply to right field, just over the outstretched arm of second baseman Jorge Cantu. Kevin Youkilis, the runner at first, immediately scampered back to first for fear of being doubled up. Right fielder Russell Branyan corralled the ball and quickly threw to second to get the force out. Still, the tying run had scored. Ortiz followed Loretta with a wall-ball double. With men on second and third and two out, Rays manager Joe Maddon elected to pitch to Manny Ramirez, who lined a ball hard to right field. Although it was a tough play, Branyan played the ball terribly, and it skipped off his glove. Both runners would score, giving the Sox a 4-2 lead.
For some reason, even though he had labored through the seventh, Clement came out for the eighth. It was a peculiar move, one that looked downright moronic after Clement threw four consecutive balls to Travis Lee to start the inning. So with the tying run at the plate and six outs remaining in the game, whom do you go and get? That’s right, your second-best reliever. Mike Timlin came on, gave up consecutive doubles to Johnny Gomes and Branyan and allowed the tying runs to score before retiring the final three batters of the inning.
Terry Francona made another mistake in the bottom half of the eighth, one that I wouldn’t characterize as egregious, but instead a mistake that manifested Francona’s propensity to not consider the big picture. Mike Lowell doubled to lead off Boston’s half of the eighth. So with a man on second and nobody out, three men would almost assuredly come to the plate with an opportunity to drive in Lowell, who represented the go-ahead run. Dustan Mohr, Adam Stern, who had come on for Wily Mo Pena for defensive purposes, and Alex Gonzalez were due up. Francona had Trot Nixon available to pinch hit, and opted to immediately use Nixon to hit in Mohr’s stead. Francona chose to hit for the best of the three hitters that were sure to come up instead of the more prudent move, which would have been to hit for Gonzalez and replace Nixon defensively with Alex Cora.
Still, all’s well that ends well. Youkilis hit a dramatic double off the top of the Green Monster to plate Nixon and Stern and for good measure, Loretta singled home Youkilis with some additional insurance. The CLOSER came on and preserved a three-run lead, albeit with some difficulty.
Curt Schilling and Doug Waechter tonight.
Both managers last night struggled to do their jobs effectively.
But a point to his credit, this is the first game I asked what the fuck Tito was doing, which is an improvement.
Also, Wiley Meaux’s recent improved batting eye is, at least in the short term, a double point to Tito and the coaching staff.
I only hope this takes and it’s not a sampling blip.