Lackey turned in 7 strong innings allowing 1 run, 8 hits, only 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. Big Papi is smacking taters with authority these days. On Sunday, I saw him deposit one over the wall and into McCovey Cove. He knew it as soon as he hit it then, and he knew it tonight when he hit a first pitch fastball into the right field stands in the 5th inning. That three run homer broke open the game. The Sox went on to an 8-1 lead by the time the 7th inning was over.
Oki not so doki anymoki, (hoky, yes I knowki.) Okajima came into the game in the 8th inning with the Sox holding a seven run lead. He went 0.2 innings, giving up 2 runs on 1 walk and 2 hits, one of which was a homer. Atchison didn’t have much left in his tank after his good performance on Saturday after Clay left the game early that day. He also went 0.2 innings, 1 hit, 1 walk, 2 runs. That gave the Rays 5 runs, but that was it. Richardson came in to relieve Atchison and continued to shave his previously heinously high ERA of 9.0 down to a nice tidy 3.86 ERA. Papelbon earned his 18th save of the season.
With all the work I was doing on the Rock & Sox Benefit for The Jimmy Fund and The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I hadn’t been paying much attention to Richardson. Does this guy throw a knuckleball? Check out this photo from RedSox.com:
I’ll have to look into this. I always did like knuckleballers.
Adrian Beltre almost put ‘Tek on the DL with a set of broken ribs almost taking him out chasing down a pop foul. ‘Tek made a nice slide to avoid the collision while Beltre made the catch. At least ‘Tek had a chest protector on. It’s a damn good thing Beltre is smacking the snot out of the balls these days. He scored 2 runs as he went 4/4 today, raising his line to BA .349, OBP .387, SLG .561, OPS .948 Beltre says don’t touch my head, the rest of the team must be saying don’t touch my ribs.
The Yankees lost today and just like that, the Sox are only 1 game out of first place in the AL East. I don’t hear much from the ‘pink hat’ section these days, y’know, the ones who had written the Sox off back in May.
As for the Rock & Sox Benefit, I’ll be posting about the night as soon as I get some photos and audio links. The long story short- it was a success.
The Sox left San Francisco making room for the Dodgers. Manny left the game in the first inning tonightcomplaining about his hammy. Yeah, right. I hope he remembers which one. You would think Torre would know that con game.
Sox 8 Rays 5 BOX SCORE
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