A rare homerun by Maicer Izturis, coupled with an ejection of Manny Ramirez, and some questionable calls lead to a 4-2 loss for the Boston Red Sox (68-44).
After walking David Ortiz in the top of the ninth inning Francisco Rodriguez was not facing Ramirez, but Brandon Moss who was substituted in for Ramirez after being ejected by home plate umpire James Hoye in the third inning for arguing if he had checked his swing or not.
Ramirez’ ejection looked a lot bigger in retrospect as Moss came up in the top of the ninth with runners on first and second with two outs only knowing the speed of which Rodriguez throws. Moss was dealt two curve balls for strikes to start the at bat and was later struck out on a fastball to end the game.
Rodriguez earned his 28th save of the season.
Almost as unlikely as seeing Moss play in the game and bat cleanup for Boston, Izturiz hit his third homerun of the season off of Curt Schilling to right field on a splitter that gave the Angels a 3-2 lead. Los Angeles added one more run in the seventh inning as Jeff Mathis doubled down the left field line, but as replay indicated it was clearly a foul ball. Mathis was sacrificied by Reggie Willits to third base and later scored on a sacrifice fly by Chone Figgins.
The other questionable call came against Boston in the eighth inning as Mike Lowell appeared to foul tip the ball, but catcher Mathis caught it for the third strike. The replay on the foul tip showed that the ball bounced in the dirt first and was a lot more conclusive than Mathis’ double in the seventh inning.
Boston scored their only runs in the game on a Kevin Youkils two run homer in the third inning off of Jered Weaver.
Schilling (6-5) picked up the loss in his return to the big club pitching for 6 innings, giving up nine hits, four runs, walking none, and striking out five. Schilling looked good until the fourth inning after attempting to catch a grounder up the middle with his pitching hand that was hit by Vladmir Guerrero. Garrett Anderson reached on a fielder’s choice which was followed by a Gary Matthews, Jr. double. Casey Kotchman singled to center scoring both runners tying the game at 2-2.
Boston’s lead has now slipped to six games over the New York Yankees as they beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 earlier in the day.
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