The Red Sox's eight-game advantage in the East is their largest lead since the penultimate day of the 1995 season, (September 30, also eight games).Yesterday was the first time since April 10, 1998 that the Red Sox rallied from five runs down in the ninth to win. Boston trailed Seattle 7-2 after eight innings before Mo Vaughn's grand slam gave Boston a 9-7 win.
Kevin Youkikis has a seven game hitting streak (14-for-29, .483), two games shy of his career-best. In his last 17 games, Yook is hitting .397 (27-for-68).
The Red Sox are 11-0 when Alex Cora starts. In his last eight games with an at-bat, he's hitting .478 (11-for-23). ... After beginning the season 4-for-5, Eric Hinske has gone 2-for-28.
Jon Lester threw 40 pitches -- fastballs and changeups -- in a bullpen session on Sunday. He'll throw another session on Wednesday.
Two of Chris Ray's three blown saves this year have come against Boston. The other one was April 26, when Wily Mo Pena hit a grand slam of a 5-2 Red Sox win.
David Ortiz couldn't believe Sam Perlozzo pulled Jeremy Guthrie (after 91 pitches) when Coco Crisp reached base on an error with Baltimore two outs away from a 5-0 shutout.
If I was a manager, and I had a kid dealing like that, and something like that happened in the ninth, I don't think I would take him out. He was dealing the whole freakin' game. He picked it up even later in the game. ... But their manager wanted to get him out of the game, for any kind of reason. Thanks, anyway.
There's a nice bit on the unsung hero of the Red Sox over at SI.com today.
ReplyDeleteThere's some other tidbits in that blog post that surprised me, like this one:
Abreu drew a walk yesterday for the first time in 61 trips to the plate, by far the longest drought of his career. He is 2 for his last 22 and has just six extra base hits all season.