Bats Awaken; Pitching Slackens. Sox Lose 10-8 Slugfest to Yankees.
Knowing that I was going to dinner with my wife on Friday night and that I was covering the Sox/Yanks game, I’d fired up the DVR and figured I’d play some catch up when I got home. Little did I know that barely a bite into dinner my sister, a lifelong Mainer and diehard Red Sox fan, would send me a text message that simply read, “Is it September yet?” I exchanged messages with her briefly and quickly came to realize that I wasn’t going to be the only one playing catch up on Friday night.
How can it be put delicately? Oh wait…it can’t. Josh Beckett got hammered for five runs in the first inning against the Evil Empire and Boston was in a big hole before Beckett had time to say chicken-beer-golf-screw you.
Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson opened the game with back-to-back singles. Beckett plunked Alex Rodriguez to load the bases with nobody out which brought Robinson Cano to the plate. Cano, owner of an 11-game hitting streak and a .352 at lifetime batting average at Fenway, also hits well over .300 against Beckett lifetime. Cano never got the chance to show his stuff. Beckett walked him and forced in the first run of the game. Mark Teixeira stroked a two-run single to put the Bombers up 3-1, still with no one out. Nick Swisher hit a sac fly to plate Cano. With Teixeira on first and one out Raul Ibanez smacked a single to put runners at the corners. Eric Chavez added to Beckett’s misery, hitting the Yankees second sac fly of the inning to centerfield to plate Teixeira. Mercifully, Russell Martin – currently batting his hat size at .176 – grounded out to end the barrage. The Yankees had sent eight men to the plate in the first inning and five had scored. Boston had been knocked to the mat and was reeling.
What Yankee pitcher Hiroki Kuroda could not have known was that on this night Boston would be counterpunching again and again. Daniel Nava scraped a 1-1 wall ball double off the top of the Monster to open the game. After a wild pitch that advanced Nava to third base, Ryan Kalish sacrifice flied to right, scoring Nava. David Ortiz‘ continued his assault on anything that throws a baseball, going the other way for a sweet single to left field. Cody Ross hit a hard bounder to Chavez at third. Chaves bobbled it, bounced the throw in the dirt and Teixeira couldn’t dig it out at first, leaving Ortiz and Ross on second and first respectively. After getting in a 3-0 hole to Adrian Gonzalez, Kuroda battled back to 3-2, only to have Gonzo smoke a slider off the Monster for Boston’s second wall ball double, scoring Ortiz.
With two aboard Jarrod Saltalamcchia dealt the Yankees a back breaking blow, crushing a three-run homer into the right field bleachers to tie the game 5-5. Papi exhorted his teammates as Salty and company cleared the bases.
"Fenway came to life and another pitched Red Sox/Yankee dogfight was on. The first inning took one hour to play. Of all the storied games played between the Red Sox and Yankees both teams had produced more first inning runs than in any other game in their history."
Beckett gave up another run in the second when Granderson tripled to open the frame and A-Rod pushed him across with a ground out to Mike Aviles. Kuroda, who hit Nava to start Boston’s half of the inning, gave up a single to Kalish and an RBI wall ball single to Ortiz to tie the score at 6-6.
By the third inning both Beckett and Kuroda had not only miraculously survived a pile of runs but had also settled down and gotten through the third and fourth innings. Beckett got jammed up in the fifth but Nick Punto, taking over for injured and newly minted DL tripper Dustin Pedroia at second base, fired a strike to Salty at the plate to cut down A-Rod and keep the game tied at 6-6.
In the sixth the Sox pushed ahead 7-6 on a Gonzo single, a wild pitch to move him into scoring position and an RBI single by Pawtucket call up, utility infielder and Boston’s third baseman Friday night Mauro Gomez (Middlebrooks sidelined with a hamstring injury).
As the Sox turned the game over to their bullpen after Beckett’s departure in the fifth, they clung to the one run lead until the Yankees broke it open again in the seventh. After a scoreless sixth inning by Matt Albers, the roof fell in again as Andrew Miller and Vicente Padilla allowed four Yankees to score and retake the lead in a big way 10-7.
Boston broke back with one run in the bottom half of the frame when Cody Ross smashed a homer over the Monster and everything else to edge Boston closer 10-8.
In the eighth, the Sox got something going when Ortiz once again went with the pitch and dumped a sharp single to left with two outs. Ross walked, forcing Yankee manager Joe Girardi to roll the dice with closer Rafael Soriano and an uncharacteristic four out save. The threat ended when Gonzalez got ahead 3-0, then took Soriano deep in the count but grounded out limply to first to end the inning.
The good news about the game is that Boston had some fight in them. Coming back against the Yankees twice to tie and eventually lead the game was good to see. The bad news is that, ultimately it was just another L in a long string of losses. When Boston needed to fight the most they went down with a whimper in the ninth as Soriano struck out both Gomez and Aviles to end the game.
With the loss Boston fell 8.5 games off the pace in the AL East and had become losers of six of their last eight games.
I’m feeling so tired, can’t understand it
Just had a fortnights sleep
I’m feeling so tired, Ow!, so distracted
Ain’t touched a thing all week
– Bitch, Rolling Stones