Lost and found by Jared Carrabis
Red Sox, Papelbon blow four-run lead in ninth only to walk off with win in the fourteenth


Once upon a time, this game was started by Josh Beckett.

I showed up twenty minutes late for Saturday's 1:10pm start, and still got to see about five hours of baseball. For me, Bonus baseball is bonus baseball, and I'll take it any way that I can get it.

That being said, this may have been one of those times when each extra frame was accompanied with a heavier sigh. The reason for that, as you may already know, is that the Red Sox held a four-run lead in the top of the ninth inning with their closer, Jonathan Papelbon, on the mound.

This ninth inning had a bad feeling from the get-go. Papelbon has never been notorious for pitching well in non-save situations, and when his day was through, four runs later, the closer's ERA when pitching in non-save situations had ballooned to 6.57.

With one out in the ninth, and still a three run lead, Dustin Pedroia had a gimme 4-6-3 double play ball hit his way, which the second baseman botched to allow the inning to continue. The twin-killing would have ended the game, but instead, the A's rallied and tied the score at seven all.

Not many teams can recover after blowing a four-run lead in the ninth inning with their best reliever on the mound, and it appeared as if though the Red Sox were going to follow in that trend when Oakland added the go-ahead run in the top of the eleventh.

In the mayhem that had been the ninth inning, both Papelbon and catcher Jason Varitek were ejected on two separate calls, which allowed Jarrod Saltalamacchia to get some at-bats in Saturday's Fenway festivities. Salty came within inches of tying the game with an opposite field blast of the Monster, but instead had to settle for a two-bagger that brought Jacoby Ellsbury to the plate.

Ellsbury had been having quite the day to that point, and added to it by hammered an RBI double down the right field line to re-tie the game at eight. It was Ellsbury's fourth career four-hit game, but just the first time in his career that he had four hits and two stolen bases, as the outfielder extended his American League-leading stolen base total to 22.

In the bottom of the fourteenth, it was the unlikeliest of heroes, as JD Drew stepped to the plate with two men aboard. Drew had been 0 for his last 4 with four strikeouts. Despite his Golden Sombrero, Drew delivered with a shot into the right-center gap to give the Red Sox their fifth walk-off win of the season.

Carl Crawford scored the game-winning run, and had quite the afternoon himself, going 4-for-7 with 3 RBI, all season highs. Crawford has now hit safely in eight of his last twelve games, hitting .383 over that span with 13 RBI and 12 runs scored.

An interesting tidbit being that Crawford has either driven in the winning run, or scored the winning run in four of the Red Sox' five walk-off wins this season.

-Jared Carrabis

Final score: Athletics 8, Red Sox 9 - 14 innings

Published on June 04, 2011

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