Motherly Love In Boston by Jared Carrabis
It was no miracle, but a win's a win


What can I say? Mother's Day is our thing around here.

Fenway cheered loudly when the men behind the Green Monster inserted an "F" to indicate that the Boston Bruins 4-0 shutout of the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5 had gone final. In the top of the eighth inning, Pat Burrell had to step out of the batter's box, because he couldn't figure out why Fenway Park was erupting into cheers. With TV monitors all over the ballpark, the Fenway Faithful was celebrating the game-winning buzzer-beater hit by Glen "Big Baby" Davis to sink the Orlando Magic in Game 4 to even their playoff series.

If the Red Sox wanted to make it a perfect 3-0 in the City of Champions, they had some work to do against Matt Garza, who nearly had a perfect game in his last start against Boston. Tampa Bay got on the board against Josh Beckett in the first on an RBI single by Pat Burrell, but the Sox didn't wait long to strike back.

Bottom of the second, guess who? Jason Bay rocked his seventh double of the season to center field to kick-start the inning. Tagging on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Mike Lowell, Bay slid safely into third base for JD Drew. Bay came across to score after Drew reached first base safely on a fielder's choice. Knotted up at one, Josh Beckett began to get in a groove, putting zeros on the board for the next four frames.

A scary moment for the Sox came in the bottom of the third when Dustin Pedroia took a hack at a Matt Garza fastball and came up limping. After he grounded out to third, Pedroia left the game with a strained right groin. After the game, manager Terry Francona commented on the extent of Pedroia's injury:

"You know if he comes out, he's hurt because he's a tough kid," Francona said. "He also thinks that he can play Tuesday. I don't think that I would do that because we're going to travel out there. But I bet he'll be in there Wednesday. I think that's very realistic. Certainly, we're going to re-evaluate him tomorrow. But I think Tom Gill and everybody thinks we're OK with Pedroia playing Wednesday."

Julio Lugo entered the game to take over at shortstop, while Nick Green shifted over to second base. If Pedroia is unable to play on Tuesday, which looks like that may be the case, Green will get the nod at second with Lugo getting the start at short.

The bottom of the fourth inning looked like Garza was going to continue his dominance against the Sox when he opened the inning with back-to-back backwards K strikeouts. After Lowell and Drew had been retired on 4-seam fastballs traveling at 95+ MPH, Jeff Bailey hammered his second double of the season off the wall in center field. The captain, Jason Varitek, shot an opposite field double down the left field line that rattled around in the corner, allowing Bailey to score Boston's second run. With two down, Nick Green poked a single into right field, scoring Varitek from second, but when Green tried to extend his single into a double, his luck ran dry and the inning was over.

The pesky Rays tied things up with a run in the fifth on an RBI single by Carl Crawford, and another run after a sac fly off the bat of Jason Bartlett. Josh Beckett made his exit after tossing six innings of three-run ball, scattering six hits, walking three and striking out five. Beckett needed 118 pitches to get through 27 batters and lowered his ERA to 6.42 (doesn't look very "low" to me).

Garza out-did his opponent by pitching into the seventh inning, holding Boston to the same amount of earned runs (3), giving up seven hits, walking two and striking out six. Both Beckett and Garza picked up a no decision in the rubber match of this series. Ramon Ramirez, who only faced one batter (lowering his ERA to 0.55), picked up the victory against Tampa Bay.

The game remained tied until the eighth inning when David Ortiz led things off with a shot out to left field that kissed the Green Monster for his tenth double of the season. With Ortiz standing in scoring position, who else but Jason Bay connected for his second double of the night that didn't miss being a home run by much. The wall-banger allowed Ortiz to score standing up with the go-ahead run in his back pocket.

After his game-winning RBI double in the eighth inning of Sunday's victory, Jason Bay upped his average to .333 in the eighth inning or later. He has had a multi-hit game in four of his last seven games and is hitting .321 in the past seven days and is hitting .371 with 26 RBI when he has came to the plate with runners in scoring position. His 34 RBI rank second to Evan Longoria's 44 in the American League. His .468 OBP is good for second in the AL and his 1.134 OPS is good for third in the league as well. Another great sign, Bay's 28 walks rank second among all American League hitters.

With a one-run lead in the ninth, Terry Francona motioned to the bullpen to unleash Jonathan Papelbon. The Boston closer allowed two men to reach base and eventually getting into scoring position with no outs before striking out pinch-hitter Carlos Pena, BJ Upton and Carl Crawford consecutively on 96 MPH heat to slam the door in the face of the Rays. The save for Papelbon was his eighth of the season and the 120th of his career. Papelbon is now just twelve saves away from tying the Red Sox all time record for saves in a Boston uniform. Bob Stanley racked up 132 saves in 13 seasons for Boston. Aside from the first place Blue Jays, the Red Sox are the second team in the American League to pile up 20 victories on the young season.

With an off-day on Monday, the Red Sox will pack their bags and head out west for a six-game road trip, which will wrap up their visits to the west coast for the rest of the year (barring a playoff series against a west coast team). With three games against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and three games against Ken Griffey Jr. and the Seattle Mariners, Justin Masterson kicks thing off in his start on Tuesday night at 10:05pm. In his career, Masterson has held the Angels to a .188 batting average with an ERA of 2.79. In his career against Boston, Jered Weaver is 2-2 with a 4.46 ERA.

I love you mom!
-Jared Carrabis

Final Score: Rays 3, Red Sox 4

Published on May 11, 2009

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