One-man wrecking crew by Jared Carrabis
Beltre's towering blast ignites five-run inning in Boston win


Another day, another life ruined by the bat of Adrian Beltre.

It was a colossal home run off the bat of Beltre that sparked the Red Sox’ offense in the second inning, a first-pitch blast that gave Boston a lead that they would not relinquish.

An RBI double off the bat of rookie Ryan Kalish and a two-run single by David Ortiz that shot through the vacated left side of the field thanks in part to the shift had the Red Sox out to a 5-0 lead with Daisuke Matsuzaka cruising along. Matsuzaka pitched his way through three and-a-third without allowing a hit, and faced just two over the minimum through five, striking out five.

Dealing with a five-run lead in the sixth, Matsuzaka hit the skids. The right-hander allowed three hits to start the inning, including a double by O’s second baseman Brian Roberts.

After a visit by Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell, Matsuzaka got Ty Wigginton to ground back to the mound, but by then, two runs had already scored. Later in the inning with two outs, Matt Wieters cranked a double out to center field that nearly cleared the wall for a game-tying blast, but instead, the Orioles had to settle for a two-run double that cut the deficit down to one run.

That was it for Matsuzaka, who historically can be dominant, and then completely implode within four or five batters.

Scott Atchison was brilliant out of the pen in relief of Matsuzaka, tossing two shutout innings, striking out three. Making just his third appearance since the July 31 trade deadline, Hideki Okajima recorded the final out of the eighth in a lefty-lefty match-up versus Luke Scott, getting the power hitter to pop out to third.

With a two-run lead, Jonathan Papelbon was summoned in the ninth. Making things interesting, Papelbon allowed a pair of singles to begin the ninth, but extinguished the O’s by punching out the last two batters of the game to lock down save number thirty-five.



Final score: Red Sox 6, Orioles 4
WP: Daisuke Matsuzaka (9-4)
LP: Brad Bergesen (6-10)
SV: Jonathan Papelbon (35)
HR: Adrian Beltre (25)

Game notes: Thursday night was the fifth time this season that Jonathan Papelbon allowed the first two runners to reach base, but just the first time that he did not allow any runs to score after allowing first two to reach. The Red Sox batted around for the twenty-eighth time this season in the top of the second. In 2009, the Red Sox batted around thirty-two times.

Tweet of the Night: @IanMBrowne: How good is AL East? Sox would be 1 1/2 back in AL Cent; 1/2 game up in AL West; two back in NL East; 2 1/2 back in NL Central; 1 back NL W.

-Jared Carrabis

Published on September 02, 2010

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