Masterson Dominates, Sox Embarassed
Since heading to Cleveland from Boston at the trade deadline in 2009 for Victor Martinez, Justin Masterson has struggled, except for his 2 starts against his former team. After last night’s impressive performance against the Sox, Masterson is now 2-0 with a 0.64 era against the Fenway Faithful. Since joining the Indians, Masterson is just 5-17 (3-17 excluding the 2 Sox games) and has an era of 5.15 (5.52 excluding the 2 Sox games) and will likely be converted to a reliever next season, but his success against the Sox is baffling. No matter how you look at it, Wednesday night’s 9-1 loss to the Indians was embarassing for the Sox.
A few years ago, who would have thought the billing on Wednesday night’s game would have been Jon Lester vs. Justin Masterson? If I told you that, would you expect a 9-1 game with the Indians on top? The game was frustrating for Jon Lester, who looked great for 2 innings, allowed a run 3rd and then another 2 in the 5th and then a 4th run before leaving the game after 5.1 innings. Only 2 runs were earned, but it felt like Lester just didn’t have his best stuff consistently throughout the night and with the emergence of a potential cramp that brought out the Sox trainer, it just wasn’t the lefty’s night.
The game also marked the much talked about return of Jacoby Ellsbury, who was activated before the game in a move that sent Daniel Nava back to Pawtucket. Ellsbury played center field and led-off, but contributed nothing to the stagnant offense that scored a single run on a solo home run for David Ortiz. In the game, the Sox had 24 men left on base, a number that is not going to win a lot of ball games. The Sox were also once again bit with the error bug, accumulating 3 in the game (Jon Lester, Victor Martinez and Marco Scutaro) which ultimately led to 7 unearned runs, including 5 for Scott Atchison.
After the big brawl and victory on Tuesday night, Wednesday was a snooze-fest filled that deflated any momentum and energy that the Sox had. With the New York Yankees winning and A-Rod hitting his 600th home run and the Tampa Bay Rays losing in the 13th inning against the Minnesota Twins, those 2 teams are tied atop the AL East and the Sox remain 6.5 back in the division, but drop to 6.5 back in the AL Wild Card chase. Mr. Obvious says, the last thing you can afford to do at this point in the season is continue to lose games and fall back in the standings. Times are certainly getting anxious around Boston and if the Sox can’t pull off a series split or win against the Yankees Fri-Sun, there may be no mroe anxiety, because there will be no mroe meaningful baseball to play.
The Sox look to salvage their dignity and secure a split with the Indians tonight when they send 7-3 Dice-K to the mound to square off against Josh Tomlin, who is 1-0 with a 1.46 era in his 2 career starts, both this season. Tomlin has allowed just 2 earned runs in 12.1 innings this year, but it is a small sample size to draw any real conclusions about this kid’s future. It is concering however, that Tomlin his staggering .163 opponent batting average because the Sox offense is what needs to get a pick-me-up Thursday. The Sox could really use some momentum heading into the weekend.