Pac 10 Pounding by Jared Carrabis
Ortiz Does Some Yard Work With The College Boys

An offensive explosion at the hands of the Boston Red Sox had the Texas Rangers waiving the white flag from the tops of the Alamo before this game even became an official Major League game. The power surge that began in the third inning and ended after a barrage of walks, singles, doubles, triples, home runs and grand slams later in the fourth inning. The Texas Rangers broke the scoring barrier first in this one by Ian Kinsler doubling to center and then swiping his sixth bag of the season to put him 90 feet from home plate. Josh Hamilton would collect his sixteenth RBI of the season by hitting a sacrifice fly to left.


Boston would respond in the bottom half and they would respond in a big way. With two outs in the inning, the Pac 10 part of the Red Sox line up would get things going against the Rangers. In the bottom of the third, Jed Lowrie (Standford) would break up a string of eight straight batters being retired by Texas starter Luis Mendoza by doubling to the opposite field. Jacoby Ellsbury (Oregon State) would follow up with a four-pitch walk to put two men on for Dustin Pedroia (Arizona State). Pedroia would follow suit and work a walk of his own to load the bases for the recently slumping, David Ortiz. Ortiz would respond to his critics by saying “slump this” when he would drive the first pitch he saw into the Monster seats for a grand slam.


Ortiz would be greeted at home plate by the three former Pac 10 superstars now all fighting for the same cause for the Boston Red Sox. The Sox would continue to showcase their hot bats the very next inning. JD Drew would show his plate patience and leadoff the inning with a walk. A visit to the mound to calm down Mendoza would prove to be ineffective as Jason Varitek would double off the wall in left and David Murphy’s inexperience with playing with the ball behind him would show as instead of playing the ball off the wall he let it scrape off and misplay the ball as it bounced off and away from the left fielder. JD Drew would come all the way around from first as the captain cruised into second with a stand-up double.


The very next batter, Sean Casey, ripped a hard line drive to right field to put runners at the corners for Jed Lowrie. Rangers manager, Ron Washington, had seen enough at that point and came out to give Luis Mendoza the hook. In to replace Mendoza was the right-hander Josh Rupe. Lowrie would contribute once again when he hit a sac fly to left as Jason Varitek would score standing up. The pride of Oregon State, Jacoby Ellsbury, would keep the flexing of the Pac 10 Red Sox muscle going by cranking an RBI triple to center to extend Boston’s lead even further. The Pac 10 crew would continue to make their presence felt when Dustin Pedroia teed off on Rupe to send a ball way back into the monster seats for his first home run of the season to give the Sox the 9-1 advantage.


Daisuke Matsuzaka would contribute with a decent outing but decent enough to account for a win. Matsuzaka would hold the Rangers to just one run up until the top of the sixth. With one out Milton Bradley scorched a double to right to set up Hank Blalock for a two-run home run sent out into the Texas bullpen and that would be the night for Daisuke. Matzuaka went five and a third giving up three runs on three hits with four strikeouts and issued two walks. The Red Sox bullpen would come on to do a nice job and keep the Rangers bats quiet for the remainder of the night. Javier Lopez threw an inning and two thirds scoreless and David Aardsma put in his inning of shutout baseball. Aardsma is quietly but consistently pitching very well for Boston with a 1.64 ERA.


The Sox pounded on some more runs in the bottom of the eighth just for good measure. It’s hard to believe that Sean Casey is a “back-up” for the Red Sox but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at his stats. Casey led off the inning with a double to left. With one out, Jacoby Ellsbury would walk for the third time on the night to put two men on. With two outs Ortiz would come to the plate looking to bury his slump even further. David Ortiz (2 for 4, 5 RBI) came back and he came back in a big way on Friday night. He lined a single in to right-center to bring Casey around from second. The throw to the cutoff was bobbled and Ellsbury’s speed was unable to be contained as he took advantage of the mistake and came around to score.


With an eight run cushion, Francona would motion to the pen for Mike Timlin in hopes that with less pressure he could return to form. Timlin would conclude the blow-out with a one-two-three inning. With the help of a huge night from Big Papi and the youth of the Boston Red Sox, the boys from Boston cruised to an 11-3 victory to open up a four game set against the Rangers at the Fens.


Final Score: Rangers 3, Red Sox 11

Published on April 18, 2008

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