RESULT – LOSS 6-1
What a spectacularly bad 8th inning for the Red Sox last night. With the game relatively close at 2-0, the Sox blundered away a chance to keep the game close and let in 4 runs (3 unearned) in the top of the 8th inning.
A collision earlier in the game between David Ross and Will Middlebrooks led to them exiting the game early. In the eighth inning, Pedro Ciriaco came on to replace Will Middlebrooks at third and promptly booted the first two balls of the inning. Pedro has 4 errors now on the year and seems to be more error prone this year than last. My guess is that it’s because he’s not seeing as regular duty as he was last year and simply isn’t preparing himself as a utility player. The 2 errors led to 4 runs in the inning breaking the backs of the Red Sox.
The turning point of the game was in the fifth when Middlebrooks and David Ross converged after a foul ball near the third base on deck circle. Both went into a slide and crashed into each other with Middlebrooks coming away with a spectacular catch on a highlight worthy play. Unfortunately both were shaken up and David Ross exited the game a pitch later with a left quad contusion. Middlebrooks came out 2 innings later with what was described as right side soreness. At the end of the game he was undergoing X-rays and a CT scan and hopefully both will come back negative. After last night, I don’t exactly have the strongest confidence in Ciriaco manning third base for any length of time.
Also in that inning, Jarrod Saltalamacchia uncorked a potential double play ball to first base that allowed another run to score. It was charged as an error to Salty but both Farrell and the young catcher were irate as they felt Ryan Doumit, who hit the groundball was out of the baseline. In another scene where an umpire seems to want to be in the spotlight, a couple pitches later he took off his mask and started barking at Salty who must have been continuing to argue about the play. Jarrod, being the bigger man, took off his mask and did not utter a single word back to him but the umpire continued to bark. John Farrell eventually came out to the rescue but I’m sick and tired of these umpires trying to be the show.
The job of the umpire is to walk away or calm down the situation and instead we get instances like these where it seems that the umpires are instigating and baiting players and coaches to get into a fight. I’m glad Salty didn’t say a word, he made the umpire look like a complete jackass and I hope MLB reviews the situation and imposes a fine on the umpire.
Before that disaster of an inning, the story on the night was the stellar pitching of Ryan Dempster and the no-show from the Sox offense.
Dempster did exactly what the Red Sox needed of him with the bullpen short-handed. He went deep into the game (7 + innings) while allowing only 5 hits and four runs, which only 2 were earned. He only walked 1 and struck out 8.
Unfortunately the Twins starter, Scott Diamond, was even better going 7 scoreless innings giving up only 3 hits with no walks and striking out 2. Diamond was painting corners all night and changing speeds nicely. I saw a lot of awkward swing and misses out there and a lot of off balance weak hits from the Red Sox.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia went 1 for 2 with the only run of the night by hitting his fourth home run of the year in the ninth inning. Other than that, there really isn’t much to talk about offensively. David Ortiz did extend his hitting streak to 27 games and finished 1 for 4 on the night. The only other hits were one from Ellsbury and one from Drew. The team didn’t have a runner reach 2nd base all night save for the home run. They hit into 2 double plays as well (Victorino & Pedroia).
It was an inning to forget for the Red Sox and thankfully we’ll have 2 more games to hopefully get another home series win. The Sox send younger Alan Webster to the mound tonight as they have shifted Felix Doubront to the bullpen. He’ll be opposed by Pedro Hernandez, another Twins lefty that is 1-0 on the year with a 3.92 ERA. Let’s hope young Webster can get his first win of his career tonight and improve on his good showing in his first outing.
SHAVING CREAM PIE TO THE FACE – GAME MVP
Ryan Dempster. Dempster gave the bullpen a rest and went 7+ innings giving up only 2 earned runs on the night. He continues his impressive strikeout total by adding 8 on the night and only walking 1. With some run support, he could have easily of won this game.
ELBOW TO THE FACE – GAME LVP
Pedro Ciriaco. His 2 consecutive errors in the 8th inning helped the Twins blow the game wide open and in his one an only at bat on the night he struck out. Not a good night for Ciriaco but he better get it out of his head quickly as he may see some time coming up depending on Middlebrooks X-rays and MRI.
PLAY OF THE GAME
The error by Salty in the eighth that instead of being a double play allowed the sixth run in for the Twins and kept the inning alive.
NEXT
Today, May 8th at Fenway vs. the Twins..
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