A Wild One
Detroit 6
Boston 12
If Kevin Youkilis is indeed “The Greek God of Walks”, it appears that the citizens of Greece presented a fresh sacrifice to him atop Mount Olympus last night. There was a total of 17 walks in this game (only 1 was intentional, to the smoking-hot J.D. Drew), a wild pitch, and two hit batters.
Fortunately, 9 of the walks came from Detroit pitching, and the Red Sox capitalized on several of them. Tim Wakefield wasn’t exactly evoking memories of Bob Tewksbury, issuing 5 free passes himself in 5 innings of work. He still managed to escape with the victory, despite some lackluster relief pitching.
Whenever Julian Tavarez’s handlers (wearing their customary white lab coats and safety goggles) are instructed to loosen his straight jacket and let him run onto the field, there is always a good chance that a tense moment will follow. Typically, that moment is manifested in a bench-clearing incident or a uncomfortable pitching performance. Last night was the latter. I realize he’ll probably find the strike zone more consistently going forward, but…yikes.
An important side note – Mike Lowell has been placed on the 15-day DL with a thumb strain, and Alex Cora is also gimpy. This led to the call up of Boston’s top infield prospect: Jed Lowrie.
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Tonight, it begins again: the greatest rivalry in American sports. I think I’d prefer a return to the old scheduling methodology of having this series begin in May (to add to the buildup), but I can’t really complain too vigorously about this.
Friday night.
Yanks/Sox.
Buchholz against Wang.
It doesn’t get much better.
I liked Tito’s intention in the bullpen usage last night, too bad Julian stunk up the joint. Sending Paps back out for the ninth was acceptable, considering the dreck that was left out there.