The Red Sox staged yet another
comeback on Wednesday night, but this time it didn’t translate into a win.
Brett Lawrie hit a walk-off
single in the 10th inning to fuel the Jays to a 4-3 win at the
Rogers Centre. This was after big Mike
Napoli played a hero in the ninth.
Down 3-1 with 2 outs in the 9th,
Mike Napoli broke out of his slump in a big way, hitting a game tying 2-run
homer to right. Napoli was in the midst
of a 5 for 40 slump, and had no hits in his previous 16 at bats. He had been moved down to 7th in
the lineup. It was a big hit and we can
only hope that this gets him going.
Offensively, the Sox were again bad
with runners in scoring position, going 1 for 9 and leaving 10 men on
base. Jarrod Saltalamacchia went 2 for 4
with 2 doubles and lately has been a doubles machine. Big Papi had one hit, a homer, his 23rd
of the year. Will Middlebrooks, Jonny
Gomes, Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury each had hits in the contest. Pedroia stole his 16th base of the
year.
The Sox played poor defense with
Jon Lester making 2 errors that directly led to a run and Shane Victorino
making his 3rd error of the season.
In close contests, you can’t make 3 errors in a game. You’ll lose every time.
Speaking of Jon Lester, he wasn’t all that
bad. He went 6 and 1/3 innings giving up
3 runs, only 2 earned, on 6 hits while striking out 3 and walking 2. His pitch count was extremely high at 114 and
he seemed to be in a lot of 3-ball counts.
The worst thing of the night was his defense.
In the 3rd inning,
Lester took a grounder from Davis off his leg, he then recovered and tried to
scoop the ball to Napoli but the ball rolled down the right-field line where
Shane Victorino then hit Davis with his throw allowing Davis to come all the
way around the bases to score the first run of the game. It was wild and like something out of a
little league game.
Brandon Workman pitched the last
3 innings and did all right. Though he
allowed the winning run to come in, he only gave up 2 hits and 2 walks while
striking out 4. I really like what I see
out of Workman this year. I know the Sox
didn’t want to tax their bullpen anymore but I would have liked to see someone
else come on in the 10th. I
think he was done.
They’ll go back at it again today
in the rubber game as Jake Peavy will face Mark Buerle in a veteran matchup.
SHAVING CREAM PIE TO THE FACE –
GAME MVP
Mike Napoli. Though he only had 1 hit, it was a big one as
it was his 15th homer of the year and it tied up the game in the
ninth to force extra innings.
ELBOW TO THE FACE – GAME LVP
Shane Victorino. He went 0 for 4 with a K and made a big error
in the game.
PLAY OF THE GAME
Bret Lawrie’s single to win the
game in the bottom of the 10th.
NEXT
Thursday, August 15th in Toronto
vs. the Blue Jays.
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