Walk this way by Jared Carrabis
Wakefield walks seven batters in Sox's loss


Making his first start since September 5, Tim Wakefield returned to the mound in a game that the Red Sox and their fans would like to soon forget.

After two-and-a-half innings, Boston held a 6-0 lead following Jason Bay's 36th home run of the season. Kansas City responded with a run of their own in the bottom half, but at the time, a 6-1 lead against the Royals more often than not, looks like it will be enough.

An RBI single by Alex Gordon in the fourth decreased the Royals' deficit to four runs.

The left-handed DiNardo issued three walks in the top of the fifth, before Victor Martinez came to the plate with two outs. With a 1-0 count, Martinez hammered an 83 MPH slider through the right side to drive in two runs for Boston.

In Wakefield's final inning of work, the right-hander allowed two walks before serving up a three-run blast to Mike Jacobs to cut Boston's lead to 8-5. Wakefield completed the inning without allowing any further damage, but his line was not all that impressive.

"Again, I'm not going to make excuses," said Wakefield. "I had plenty of time to work it out on the side, and I didn't do it tonight."

He needed 103 pitches to make it through five frames, and nearly half of those pitches were balls (59 strikes total). The knuckleballer allowed a season-high seven walks and yielded five runs, four earned.

Boston managed to tag on another run in the top of the sixth via an unexpected wild pitch, but the Royals dropped an unexpected six-spot on the Red Sox's bullpen in the bottom of the sixth.

Right-handed reliever Manny Delcarmen's struggles continued when he allowed three doubles and a walk in two-thirds of an inning. The four earned runs jacked up Delcarmen's ERA to 4.34, as the Boston native's replacement was no better.

Daniel Bard took over for Delcarmen, and went on to walk the first batter, before allowing a double and a single, which led to two more runs for the Royals.

The complete bullpen meltdown led to the eventual 12-9 loss for the Red Sox. The loss was charged to Bard, his second, as he also picked up his third blown save.

Final Score: Red Sox 9, Royals 12

Tuesday's pitching match-up:

In a lop-sided pitching match-up, Paul Byrd is faced with the task of going toe-to-toe with Cy Young candidate Zach Greinke (14-8, 2.14 ERA). On the upside, Byrd held the AL West leading Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to just three earned runs over 5.1 innings of work. If he can duplicate that line, or better, the Red Sox should be able to scrap together a couple of runs to have a chance against the right-hander, Greinke. In two career starts against Boston, Greinke is 0-2 against the Sox with a respectable ERA of 3.45.

Eye on the scoreboard:

Yankees 2, Angels 5
Rangers 10, Athletics 3

Result: The Red Sox missed out on a great opportunity to pull within four games of the Yankees in the American League East, after New York's struggles against the Angels continued with a 5-2 loss. The Red Sox are just four games behind in the loss column, so the division dreams aren't "dashed" just yet. The Rangers' convincing victory over the A's brought Texas back to being seven games out in the Wild Card.

-Jared Carrabis

To order my debut book, One Fan's Story: If This Hat Could Talk, click HERE!





Published on September 22, 2009

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