Laser show! by Jared Carrabis
Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox walk off with the win


Rookie of the Year, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove, American League MVP -- quite the impressive list, but there's one thing that Dustin Pedroia hasn't done, until now.

Extending his hitting streak to seven games in the bottom of the seventh, Pedroia came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with the game on the line.

Before he could get to that point, Tim Wakefield had to hold off the Dodgers potent offense. Wakefield tossed 6.1 innings to outlast L.A.'s Vicente Padilla, who was lifted from the game with one out in the sixth.

Padilla was hit hard by Daniel Nava, who rocked an RBI double in the second, and Victor Martinez, who blasted his ninth homer of the season, while pleading his case to be the second All Star catcher behind Joe Mauer.

Manny haters around Red Sox Nation really had something to boo about on Saturday, when in the sixth inning, Ramirez lifted a solo home run off of Wakefield that landed in the front row of the Monster seats.

In the bottom half of the very same inning, Kevin Youkilis washed away the sour taste that Manny left in Red Sox fans' mouths by cranking a solo home run of his own, his fourteenth.

Knotted up at four in the bottom of the ninth, Bill Hall got things going with a lead-off single. Nava dropped down a sacrifice bunt to move Hall into scoring position, as Darnell McDonald failed to bring the winning run home, striking out.

Marco Scutaro worked a walk on six pitches to bring Pedroia to the plate with the game on the line.

With a runner in scoring position, Joe Torre opted to go with his closer, Jonathan Broxton, to face one of the toughest outs in baseball.

For the first three pitches, Pedroia simply looked over-matched. That's no knock against Pedroia, who is a great hitter, but rather a compliment to Broxton, who is just flat out dirty.

Pedroia even admitted after the game, "He threw me some pretty tough pitches. It's not fun. I've never faced a guy like that before and he's throwing 100 with that second pitch. Honestly, when I got two strikes, I was just trying to put the ball in play and I got it on the barrel."

On the fourth pitch of the at bat, Pedroia reached out and flicked a 98 MPH fastball on the outside part of the plate into right field, bringing Nava around to score the winning run. For Pedroia, it was the first walk-off hit in his big league career.



Final score: Dodgers 4, Red Sox 5
WP: Jonathan Papelbon (2-3)
LP: Ronald Belisario (1-1)

Game notes: Dustin Pedroia extended his hitting streak to nine games, hitting .472 with a 1.179 OPS over that span.

-Jared Carrabis

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





Published on June 19, 2010

---

Tweet