Cold sweats to laughter in roughly 15 minutes.
Bottom of the 7th: Manny Delcarmen, in relief of Curt Schilling (6-6-4-1-3, 105) has allowed three straight singles with no one out. Boston's lead, once 6-1 (thanks in part to back-to-back home runs from Manny Ramirez and Trot Nixon), is now 6-5. The A's have men on first and second. Al Nipper visits MDC. 12:38 am. ... Milton Bradley flies out to Manny in left-center. Frank Thomas strikes out on a full-count, 79 mph curveball on the outside corner. Nick Swisher, after turing away from an outside curve for strike two, swings and misses an 95 mph fastball. Inning over.
Top of the 8th: Justin Duchscherer gets Kevin Youkilis on a hot shot to third base. Then the floodgates open: Mark Loretta singles to right-center. David Ortiz singles to left. Ramirez walks to load the bases. Duchscherer is pulled and is ejected for arguing some close pitches to Manny. Brad Halsey comes in and he walks Nixon on four pitches to give Boston a 7-5 lead. Jason Varitek clears the bases with a double to the left-center gap (10-5). 12:54 am. ... Mike Lowell singles. Coco Crisp (3-for-6) singles to right and scores Varitek (11-5). Alex Gonzalez reaches on a fielder's choice that scores Lowell (12-5). Youkilis singles, but Loretta finally makes the third out.
Julian Tavarez pitched the 8th inning. He allowed a single and walk with one out, but got a 5-4-3 double play. Rudy Seanez pitched a perfect 9th on only seven pitches, all strikes. He clearly is at his best with an eight-run lead.
New York beat Texas 7-4 and Toronto whipped seattle 12-3, so the East stays the same: Yankees 2.5 GB, Blue Jays 5.5 GB.
***
Curt Schilling (3.50) / Jason Windsor (1.80), 10 PM
Schilling has pitched at least seven innings in four of his past five starts and has gone at least six innings in each of his last 12 starts. On July 15, he shut out the A's on two hits over seven innings at Fenway Park.
Windsor made his first major league start on July 17, allowing five hits and three walks to the Orioles in five innings. He gave up three runs, but only one was earned.
5 comments:
Something happened when I updated the original post after the game and it got deleted. So here are the two comments that apparently got wiped out:
Jere
12:35 am
Both of Schilling's innings where he gave up runs came after we scored in the top half. I'm just continuing to keep everyone updated on your correct theory...
Zenslinger
1:13 am
Only bad thing about the big eighth we're having? The sneaking suspicion that we need it. Not every run necessarily, but...still need it. Great to see such slumpers as Tek, Coco, and Trot git some, tho.
My imagination or did Manny's HR almost land on the roof of my building over here in San Francisco?
I'm just happy to see Terry use those bullpen re-treads with a large lead rather than throwing Timlin or Paps back out there with a big lead.
"He clearly is at his best with an eight-run lead."
GREAT line!
I made a little note on my scoresheet that they said "the calls could have gone either way".
Well, if they could have gone either way, then the umpire was right -- they could have been balls. ... I didn't see anything wrong with the calls, btw.
Then they moaned that the ump must have thought that Manny was Ted Williams -- and they mentioned the old line about what the umpire allegedly said to the young catcher who complained about good pitches being called balls when Ted was batting. "Mr. Williams will let you know when it's a strike."
Whaaaaaa -- go find the Hawk and have a good cry boys.
I totally agree that there was nothing wrong with those ball calls on Manny. And usually I'm quick to criticize announcers, but, I have to say, hearing those A's guys for the last two games--aside from that one instance--they've been very fair, and very kind to the Red Sox and our fans that showed up at their ballpark.
Post a Comment