G108: Red Sox 3, Spiders 2

Spiders   - 100 100 000 - 2  7  2
Red Sox   - 010 001 001 - 3  8  0

Jacoby Ellsbury's single to center scored pinch-runner Jarrod Saltalamacchia from second with one out in the bottom of the ninth. It was the first walk-off hit of Ellsbury's career.

After Mike Aviles flied out to center against reliever Vinnie Pestano, Jason Varitek cracked a hard single up the middle. Salty went in to run at first base and he advanced to second when Josh Reddick's pop-up fell untouched in short right-center. Ellsbury looked at ball one, then lined the ball to center. Third base coach Tim Bogar waived Salty around - which worried me a lot (I would have been cool with the bases loaded for Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez) - but, thankfully, Ezequiel Carrera's throw home tailed towards the first base side of the plate. Once Carlos Santana had the ball, he dove towards the plate, but Salty got in ahead of him!

(Santana is catching the ball in the first picture. If Carrera's throw was on the mark, we're sharpening the guillotine for Bogar.)

Beckett pitched well (6-6-2-0-7, 85), allowing two solo dongs, but warming up twice - the start of the game was delayed 95 minutes by rain - may have led Terry Francona to employ a quicker hook than usual. Franklin Morales was stupendous in Beckett's place, allowing only one hit and fanning three in two innings of work. Jonathan Papelbon breezed through the ninth on 10 pitches.

Boston tied the game in the second when David Ortiz walked, was safe at second on an infield error, took third on Aviles's single, and scored on a wild pitch. While running from first to second on Carl Crawford's grounder to shortstop, Tiz slowed down and was turning out of the baseline towards the outfield, assuming that Cleveland would turn a double play. Now, why Ortiz would want to assist the opposing team in making the DP as easy as possible, I do not know, but plenty of players do it. In this case, Jason Kipnis fumbled the throw from Asdrubal Cabrera and Ortiz suddenly realized he had better get his ass to second. He barely made it safely.

Kevin Youkilis's solo home run leading off the sixth tied the game at 2-2. Yook was ejected in the eighth after being called out on strikes on a check swing by 1B umpire Gerry Davis. Yook certainly bitched to Davis ("NO! No way! No way! You're out of your mind!"), but it seemed to me as though Davis screamed a lot more crap (while walking down the first base line) at Youkilis.

The Yankees beat the White Sox 6-0 in a game that was called in the middle of the seventh inning because of rain. Boston remains 1.0 GA of New York.

David Huff / Josh Beckett

Peter Abraham has a short post about Dustin Pedroia. Nothing new, just marveling once again at how hot the Laser Chicken has been since getting his right knee examined on June 9. How hot? In 45 games, he's hit .388/.461/.670 (1.131 OPS) with 29 extra-base hits, 35 RBI and 42 runs scored*. He's drawn 28 walks and struck out only 12 times. And he's stolen eight bases in nine tries.

* In 80 games, Carl Crawford has 25 extra-base hits, 37 RBI and 42 runs scored.

Adrian Gonzalez has a career-high 11-game hitting streak (24-for-47, .511). ... Out of curiosity, I checked what Gonzalez has hit since June 9: .385/.457/.571 (1.028). Pretty, pretty, pretty good ...

Since June 9

           AVG   OBP   SLG    OPS
Ellsbury  .335  .390  .562   .952
Pedroia   .388  .461  .670  1.131
Gonzalez  .385  .457  .571  1.028
Youkilis  .301  .402  .519   .921
Ortiz     .239  .353  .430   .783
  
Salty     .303  .369  .556   .925

AL East (Red Sox 1.0 GA): Yankees/White Sox at 8 PM.