Quite possibly the best game pitched by Daisuke Matsuzaka this season (8.1 innings, three hits, one earned run, one walk, and eight strikeouts) was not enough as Joel Pineiro blew it in the 11th inning as the Seattle Mariners completed the sweep of the Boston Red Sox (48-29) in extra innings 2-1.
Matsuzaka was electric fanning the first four out of six batters he faced in the game, but got the no decision considering that the Red Sox lineup were 0-8 with runners in scoring position.
This has been the trend of the series with the Mariners as the Sox left 62 men on base in the three game series and have lost the last eight games they have played at Safeco Field.
Ichiro Suzuki (39) drove home the first run of the game on an RBI single bringing home catcher Jamie Burke giving the Mariners a 1-0 lead.
After that Matsuzaka was lights out giving up only one hit until he left the game after eight innings of work.
Boston scored their lone run on a sacrifice-fly by Coco Crisp that scored J.D. Drew tying it in the seventh at 1-1.
With Suzuki on third and Jose Vidro on first with one out in the bottom of the ninth Jonathan Papelbon was brought into relieve Hideki Okajima who started the inning to try and salvage the game and force extra innings.
Papelbon did force it to extra innings getting out of a huge jam getting Richie Sexson to foul out to second baseman Dustin Pedroia and grounding out Ben Broussard to Pedroia for the third out of the inning.
Terry Francona who did not want to use Pineiro at all in the game was forced to do so and it back fired as Pineiro gave up the game winning run on a Jose Lopez double to deep left field that Manny Ramirez almost caught.
Pineiro twisted his ankle only two days prior to this game in stretching excercises and was forced into the game.
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