Today offers an afternoon affair, and if it is as nice out in Beantown as it is up above the East River in Brooklyn then the phrase "a perfect day for baseball" couldn't be more appropriate.
Daisuke Matsuzaka heads to the hill for the Sox, once again we wonder if his "luck" will run out at some point or if he's just an historic outlier. Matt Garza hurls for Tampa, and we hope that is a literal description of what he does today.
Comment here about the game, lineups after the jump.
Red Sox
1. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
2. Dustin Pedroia, 2B
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
5. J.D. Drew, RF
6. Jason Bay, LF
7. Mike Lowell, 3B
8. Jed Lowrie, SS
9. Jason Varitek, C
— Daisuke Matsuzaka, RHP
Rays
1. Akinori Iwamura, 2B
2. Carl Crawford, LF
3. Evan Longoria, 3B
4. Carlos Pena, 1B
5. Willy Aybar, DH
6. Matt Joyce, CF
7. Gabe Gross, RF
8. Shawn Riggans, C
9. Jason Bartlett, SS
— Matt Garza, RH
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Revenge! Revenge for Games 3 and 7, I tells ya!
last night’s game was a sloppy afair – from the sox’s standpoint (pitching, fielding, hitting with RoB) and the umpiring standpoint. hopefully it was the cold weather/after season opener let down…
sunny baseball today! Youk’s day game hitting stats are huge IIRC.
Youk’s career OPS:
Day: 848
Night: 862
Dice-K exploits generous strike zone, makes Iwamura look silly on strike three.
Daisuke throwing strikes?!?!?! Is this how things are going to be from now on?
And then Longoria doubles. Douchebag.
Medium-speed grounder to Youk. 2 out.
Longoria doubles to left. Feh.
Walks Pena. Oy. 2 on for Aybar.
He should have just IBB’d Pena. The rest of the Rays lineup is pathetic after those first 4.
Aybar K’s on a called strike three.
A little Dice-y, but the results are also Dice-y.
Howdy, Ath!
Aybar strikes out. Nice work Daisuke.
Good afternoon Devine! Unfortunately I’m in meetings from 2:00 to 5:00, so I’ll be missing the rest of the game today. It sucks too, since the next 6 are out west in that crappy timezone.
Ellsbury bunts his way on!
Bunt single from Ellsbury? I like!
Haha the 2nd pitch to Ortiz registered as an automatic ball according to Gameday.
Routine flyout to center Pedroia.
Full count to Ortiz. Both strikes fouls on 96 MPH fastballs from Garza.
Ortiz strikes out, Ellsbury steals second, takes third on the throw (shortstop called for interference as he was in Ellsbury’s path to third, but he would have taken 3rd anyway).
Youk walks. Both teams had a crack, will the Red Sox capitalize?
Nice!
F*ck. Lineout to short Drew. Lineout 3rd outs with RISP sting.
Boooo opportunity squandered.
Home run Joyce. Deep to right over the bullpen. TB 1-0.
It goes cleanly after the leadoff blast. BOT 2nd coming up.
Aight let’s take 2 out of 3 today! (Rays HR notwithstanding)
Pena airmails an underhand throw (after making a good stop) and Lowrie gets on with 2 down. Unfortunately, this means Tek is up and he grounds out. Lineup will reboot in the 3rd.
Check that, both lineups are rebooting in the 3rd and Daisuke is promptly walking Iwamura on 4 pitches. The crowd seems really out of it.
Longoria homers. Monster seats. 3-0.
well, the yanks just got scored on. 1-0 O’s. this makes 21 innings played without the yanks having a lead.
now AJ just needs to pull up lame in Pavono like fashion.
tex homers. 1-1. he’s on pace for a varitek type year.
This crowd really stinks. 2 on, 2 out, and no discernible cheering. Just isolated yells.
Finally someone tries rhythmic clapping and it starts to build and then Drew pops out.
Riggans hits it just into the bullpen in right. That’s 3 HR allowed for Dice-K. Monster double barely fair down the line immediately follows. Umpires confer and confirm.
Ah, a little character from the crowd as they mock-cheer a clearly foul ball afterward when it’s called foul by the ump.
Trying really hard not to overreact right now.
Someone needs to go all Terry O’Reilly on the Rays.
Jeezzz.
Dice-K hits Joyce. Shouldn’t he hit Longoria?
After Dice-K gets a double play after a walk, there’s a double by Aybar. Joyce, who homered earlier, gets hit in the torso by Dice-K. Purposely?
Runners move up on a wild pitch/passed ball, and they IBB Gross to bring up Riggans who homered last off Dice-K, I think.
Pop-up. Hey offense, hey crowd, mind starting the ignition?
Awwwwww, that was so almost a 2-bagger for Pedroia with Ellsbury at 1st. Crawford too fast.
Papi gives it a ride, but not enough. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
Sheesh! Gameday just froze on me. Anything good going on?
Dice-K = Done-K
Iwamura doubles off the wall. Little Manny coming in.
Top 6 – Crawford, Gross only Rays w/out a hit.
Was Dice-K looking sloppy or did the Rays jsut hit some good pitches?
Dice-K was bad. All over the place, couldn’t seem to count on any pitch in his arsenal. Missed wildly or left them right where they could hit him. Hit hard all day.
Longoria is out for the first time for the final out of the TB 6th.
Youk leadoff double. One run? Please?
Drew deep to center, out. Youk tags, is at 3rd with one out and Bay up.
RBI trip by Bay, 4-1.
This should be Garza’s last inning.
RBI triple into the triangle, BAY! Woooo! One more? Still runner at 3rd, one out. Crowd wisely stayed away from the ball as it bounced near the stands and it stayed in play.
Ooooooohhhh, Lowell lines out. Rough. Really rough.
Keep it going. A double off the wall by Lowell. … aw, crap.
Make something happen here Jed.
Only the one run. Hold ’em down, keep up that pace.
Mikee!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Clear the pitcher, Lowrie! (And drive in the tying runs and stuff.)
Strike call on 2-0 was crap.
K. Bleh.
Lowrie with 5K’s this series now.
Lowrie K’s again with RISP.
Okie holding down the fort in the top of the 9th.
Lowrie hit the snot out of the ball in the spring.
Okie had Pena struck out on Ball 3, then walks him.
Okie’s lost the strike zone.
Holy crap, what a catch!
TEK!!!!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Yeah, bro! Way to go, Tek! Within one.
odd….Tek is currently the HR leader on the team.
toasty.
Come on Pedroia
Up to you Papi
Come on, Youk…
Papi walks…Youk time
damn damn damn
Bummer. Hard-fought.
Frustrating, but not a disaster.
They hung around despite a very good outing by Garza. I think they know they can hit the Rays’ pen this year, which they couldn’t do last year.
Keeping in mind that this is the third game of the season, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about what the Sox can do against Tampa this season.
Came home just in time to see Pedroia robbed of a hit, and then Youk miss a walk-off by 15 feet. Bah.
nice to see a pair of mediocre starts from sox pitchers to match the pair the yanks had this week.
Wait, these count?!