Eric Gagne is expected to be in the Fens in time for tomorrow night’s game against Baltimore. So this game the Sox will have to make do with their lousy old bullpen of Delcarmen, Okajima and Papelbon. Rough times.
Tonight’s game (oh, they’re playing tonight?) actually features a heck of a pitcher’s duel, with two Cy Young candidates on the hill. Josh Beckett lost his last such duel, 1-0, against Fausto Carmona. This time he faces Erik Bedard, who is arguably a better pitcher than both Carmona and Beckett, but who plays for a terrible team.
Bedard has been on fire (cue old "NBA Jam" voice). Since allowing six runs in 5.2 innings to Chicago on July 2, he’s been filthy — tossing a two-hit, 15-K shutout against Texas, throwing another seven shutout innings against Chicago in a rematch, allowing just one run in seven against Oakland, and just one run in six innings against Tampa Bay last outing. He won all four starts and is now 10-6.
Beckett, on the other hand, has deserved better than he’s gotten, notching quality starts in four straight outings as well, but losing two of them. He continues his quest for Win 14 tonight.
Comment away!
1st pitch homerun by Roberts. Ouch….
Nice. One pitch, one
outrun. Homer by Roberts on the first toss by Beckett. Blech.So begins the Eric Gagne era.
What a lousy beginning. But with luck it’ll be their only run all night.
Beckett appears to be bouncing back.
The way the Sox hit young lefties, one run might be enough for the O’s…
Millar with an “oops” contact on the check swing.
Wiffy hitting 9th
Damn you Patterson. Nice diving grab.
God damn it. That first out better not be indicative of how this night is gonna go.
That outfield looks hashed.
Positive: nice contact hit against Bedard.
Negative: Patterson.
Miggy with the butter glove. Allows Pedroia to reach 1st.
Das boot!
Ortiz fights of Bedard for a blooper to right field.
Manny time
My bad, left field.
Hard-fought AB leads to bloop single for Ortiz. Whew.
Kinda expecting a DP from Manny here…
Manny pops out
Not what envisioned for Manny time.
Pop-up…that’s better than what I was thinking anyway.
Come on, YOUUUUUUK.
Youk strikes out to end the inning. yuck
God damn it, indeed.
Bedard with 26 pitches that inning. Small positives
Orioles PWNED that inning (particularly Huff on three straight called strikes). May the rest be similar.
Beckett with 17 pitches through 2.
Red Sox rather PWNED themselves that inning.
That first inning was a harbinger: one pitch one run for the Birds, then a great defensive play by the O’s saves a huge potential inning and a subsequent squander by Manny and Youk against a good young pitcher. This night has “major frustration” written all over it.
MASN announcers just said that Pena is not in the lineup for his defense, but for his BAT.
What dude are they looking at?
F*ck you, Roberts.
Major Frustration after a good day.
Celts get Garnett, Sox get Gagne, Yanks get nothing.
Yes we are starting to suck this up tonight.
double play please?
Damn, Millar with the two out single scoring two runs. The replay looked like Lugo pulled his glove back at the last minute.
Walking away from this one. Hope for better and worse for the Sox and Yanks respectively tomorrow.
Willy Mo walks.
Lugo GIDP. Looked like WMP started towards 2nd, then headed to 1st (avoiding any attempt at a breakup) and Lugo almost beats the throw from Miggy.
Lugo rapidly reacquiring LFRS status.
Pedroia walks. We need something here.
PAPI!!!!!!! 1st Pitch homer to right!!
4-2
Wooo! I’m gonna get all my updates through here (so maybe I’m not walking away as much as I originally thought…but I am still at work…). Thanks for the play by play, Rob.
Manny ground to third to end the inning.
No problem Devine.
BTW..it was a FAT hanging curve.
Alright, we got 2 back. Hold the line Josh, and try to be a little easier on those coolers.
Get within one going into the sixth and I will feel better…
Anyone heard who will replace Gabbard tomorrow? Announcers just said the possibilities are Wake or Tavarez. They mentioned Bucholz, but I have not read that anywhere.
OMG…Willie with a running/dive/crash into the ground on a low liner.
The grounds crew will be replacing the divet between innings.
The MASN announcers stated that Willie had a “head gem.”
I’d rather see Bucholtz than Wake or Batshite.
Way to go Beckett, nice 1-2-3.
W. Modesto Pena could raise his stock enormously here with a gran’ salami… But I scent a DP instead.
Bases loaded for Wily Mo. Ugh.
Willy Mo up with the bases loaded. 1 out
Activity in the O’s bullpen.
I smell squander.
Wily Mo whiffs horribly. I f*cking hate Wily Mo like noone else.
I read somewhere that Wakefield will start tomorrow, but I forget where (Globe, maybe?).
Willy is probably more likely to K (as he did) than hit into a DP. Guy just doesn’t make contact enough.
Pena/Lugo batting back-to-back in the order is frigging torture. Why don’t the Sox just send up two resin bags?
Oy. Well, now Lugo has a chance to make up for the DP last inning.
Come on Lugo. Deliver.
3-1 count, Bedard all over the place. Make him throw a strike here, Julio.
The resin bags are the PTBNL in the Piniero deal.
And a strike he throws.
Full count, runners start, and the pitch…
fouled off.
Bedard now at 84 pitches.
Lugo strikes looking on a low pitch, borderline, but come on, Julio, get the bat off your shoulder.
Pathetic. Glad to see the “horrific in the clutch” Sox are back in the house.
Wow..very low strike called on Lugo. Looked to be below the knees.
Meanwhile the Yanks are playing put em on base and knock them in with homers as Contreras pitches BP. 9-3
That looked low to me, I’d be peeved too.
So who has hits against Bedard? *checks*
Oh right, Ortiz.
Sh*t.
UGH.
On the bright side, Bedard has thrown twice as many pitches as Beckett (85 vs. 44) throug four. A few long at-bats in the 5th could chase him.
Replay shows the pitch to be pretty low, probably a bad call. Still, Lugo totally passive there, unacceptable.
And now Lugo makes another weak play, dropping a ball in the hole.
This team is infuriating, still, even with an eight/seven game lead.
GIDP. Two down.
Thank you baseball gods for ye double play.
Double-play erases Lugo’s bobble, 2 out, 1st-pitch-swinging keeps Beck’s pitch count down (46).
First pitch single.
Here’s a question I’ve had for a while… Obviously, getting a hit off of major league pitching is a prodigious feat, requiring equivalently stupendous athleticism.
But how hard is it to (deliberately) foul off a pitch?
In other words: Could three decent MLB hitters be relied on, if instructed to do so in a key inning, to foul off enough pitches to drive a pitcher over the 100-pitch threshold? Or is it too chancey?
(I’m guessing the answer is that no manager would send out hitters with such instructions, but in situations like this it seems tempting.)
Bad throw by Tek, Patterson steals second. Good throw has him.
Beckett then walks Markakis. Beckett’s given up 7 hits and 2 walks in 4.2 innings, not a strong outing at all.
The Sox are going to have to do better than this, for sure. A truly bad showing so far.
Interesting question Hudson. Not sure if someone could actually do that or not.
Patterson tries to steal third with two outs, why I have no idea. Out by a mile on a good throw by Tek.
jim joyce really likes himself. love it when an umpire thinks he’s bigger than the game. i shouldn’t know his name.
11-3 in NY now.
No six pitch innings here, guys. It’s important to get Bedard up near 100 or so…
And just like that, Pedroia is out on two pitches.
I give up, I am like poison to the Sox; any time I join a thread they suck ass and I want to bash my head against a wall.
Later, everyone.
no, come back sf….
700 pound hockey goalie = intentional foul ball artist
Grrrr, 1-2-3 inning leaves Bedard at 95. So he’ll be back for at least part of the 6th.
Manny with a horrible play on the shot to left field.
Papi homer #2!
If this is Ortiz’s re-emergence as a big bat then who needs Dye :)
Dispiriting game. One more half-inning is left to redeem it.
I liike our chances if Ortiz gets to bat again ;)
Maybe Gagne will help the bats when he gets here tomorrow.
Crisp makes it a little interesting, singling with one out in the bottom of the 9th. Hinske batting. A home run ties it; don’t hold your breath.
2 on, 1 out, what disaster will strike next…?
Hinske draws the walk to put the walk-off run at the plate in the form of Lugo (who has some ‘splaining to do for his earlier LOBs)…
Oof, Lugo barely beats a throw to avert a DP. Crisp on 3rd, two out for DPed. Heroics?
Nope, weak ground-out 1-3, Yankees now 7 out. Arrgh.
Papi had 3 of Boston’s 4 hits.
A quick note on Hudson’s question. Isn’t there a legendary Williams story where he was peeved at hecklers in the left-field stands and paid them back by spraying foul line drives in that direction over and over? I have no idea if it’s true, but I know I’ve heard it. If anyone could do it, I would say Williams could.
Ugly: the Sox’ 4-7 batters were 0 for 13, two walks. Everyone but David Ortiz, 1 for 27, 6 walks. Pathetic. But it was Erik Bedard, so it’s hard to be too upset. I’m about tired of not putting the Yankees away for good, though.
Putting away them for the Division Paul? We all should agree that’s a foregone conclusion, no? It’s the WC I’m hoping for. An ALCS defeat for the Sox by their WC winning rivals. Rings a familair bell… Ahhh let’s hope. That would piss you off good.
i’m with by78, but i’ll be a little gentler…i realize that the yanks have not been mathematically eliminated and have been playing at a better clip than the sox since the break, but even 7 games is a lot to overcome…yes, i know they’ve already made up 7.5, but these teams are different than the ones the yanks came back on in years past…this sox team has better pitching [and hitting, when they hit] than the prior sox teams, and this yanks team is wildly inconsistent even while winning…hard to sustain the kind of streaks they’ll need to make up the remaining deficit…so, i’m gonna focus on the wild card…of course i’d like to see the yanks eventually pay the sox back in the playoffs for a little sweet revenge…if it happens though, i’ll take a page out of the sox fans book and be gracious about it like you all have been about the results in 2004…