Last night, it was the wildness of the Boston Red Sox pitching staff. Tonight, it was the wildness of the Detroit Tigers pitching as the Red Sox made the most of their opportunities handed to them by the Tigers in a 12-6 win in front of 37, 612 at Fenway Park. The win evens up the Red Sox record at 5-5 while the Tigers drop to 1-8 on the young season.
All but two players, David Ortiz and Jacoby Ellsbury, who played in the game had hits for the Red Sox. J.D. Drew was perfect at the plate going 3-for-3 with 2 RBIs. Coco Crisp increased his trade value by going 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs while the “Mayor” Sean Casey was 2-for-5 with 3 RBIs.
Tim Wakefield (1-0) started for the Red Sox tonight and went 5 innings, giving up 3 hits, 2 runs (1 earned), 5 walks while striking out 5. Manny Delcarmen looked good again despite giving up a home run to Magglio Ordoñez in his 1 2/3 innings. Hideki Okajima threw 1/3 of an inning while Julian “Yo-Yo” Tavarez almost blew the game giving up 3 hits, 3 runs and 2 walks in just 2/3 of an inning. Jonathan Papelbon bailed out Yo-Yo throwing 1 1/3 innings giving up 2 hits while striking out 2 for his third save.
After the game, the Red Sox announced Mike Timlin will be activated by the Red Sox tomorrow and Bryan Corey will be designated for assignment.
The Tigers got on the scoreboard first in the 4th inning. Edgar Renteria struck out to start the inning, then Wakefield walked Ivan Rodriguez. Marcus Thames moved Pudge up 90 feet with a single. Both runners advanced one base when Kevin Cash had his first passed ball in a Red Sox uniform. Brandon Inge hit a sacrifice fly to score Pudge giving the Tigers a 1-0 lead. Placido Polanco made it 2-0 when his single off the wall scored Thames. Gary Sheffield grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.
In the bottom half of the 4th, Big Papi led off with a strikeout. Then Tigers starter Nate Robertson got a little wild as he issued back-to-back walks to Manny and Youk. J.D. Drew got the Red Sox on the scoreboard with a single as Manny ignored the stop sign by third base coach DeMarlo Hale. Coco tied the game with a ground rule double that went off of the foul pole in right to score Youk. Casey grounded out to deep first base to bring in Drew and Cash gave the Red Sox a 4-2 lead as his single easily scored Coco.
After retiring four straight batters, Delcarmen served up a meatball in the 7th inning to Magglio who put it into the Green Monster seats to cut the lead to 4-3. After Delcarmen got Miguel Cabrera to ground out, Okajima came into get Carlos Guillen to fly out to Drew in right.
The Red Sox countered back with two runs in the bottom of the 7th off Tigers reliever Zach Minor. After a Lugo strikeout, Dustin Pedroia walked and stole second. Big Papi walked and they both came around to score when Manny crushed a double to deep left center to give the Sox a 6-3 lead. Francisco Beltran came into pitch for the Tigers and Ellsbury came into run for Manny. Beltran got Youk to ground out and then the Tigers intentionally walked the red-hot Drew. Minor’s wildness continued as he walked Coco to load up the bases. The Mayor made him pay for the walk as his single scored Ellsbury and Drew to put the Sox up 8-3.
With the Yankees coming into town tomorrow, Terry Francona decided to bring in Yo-Yo and save Oki and Paps for the Skanks. Yo-Yo started the 8th inning off with a walk to Renteria and a long single by Pudge moving Renteria to third. Pudge stole second with Thames at the plate, who ended up walking. Inge cut the lead to 8-4 with a single as the bases remained loaded. Polanco brought in another run and again the bases were loaded. Yo-Yo managed to get a double play out of Sheffield but a run scored to make 8-6. Paps then came in and only needed two pitches to get Magglio to fly out.
The Sox added four more runs in the bottom of the 8th to put the game away.
Clay Buchholz will toe the rubber tomorrow for the Red Sox while Chien-Mien Wang gets the ball for the Skanks. First pitch is 7:05 and NESN will be starting their pre-game show at 5:30 PM.
Notes and musings:
Kurt Angle was in attendance tonight.
Tonight was Japanese Heritage Night at the Fens.
Coming into tonight’s game:
Big Papi is hitless in his last 7 at bats and has one hit in his last 19 AB since homered in the 7th inning on April 2 at Oakland.
Alex Cora has reached base safely in all 5 of his plate appearances in 2008 with 3 hits, a BB, and HBP.
J.D. Drew has hit safely in all 6 of his regular season contests at 8-for-22 (.364) and has an 11-game regular season streak over 2 seasons at .425 (17-40) with 3 homers and 12 RBI. He extended it to 12 games tonight.
Wakefield has appeared in a game for the Red Sox in 14 consecutive seasons, the longest continuous stint for a pitcher in Red Sox history.
So this is the JD Drew we’ve heard about.
The Sox should have sent YoYo packing instead of Corey. Tavarez has been awful. Corey’s only real crime is being the victim of numbers.
Corey hasn’t pitched well in his last two outings and that’s what probably cost him the job. Supposedly it came down to him and Aardsma and Aardsma was kept because he’s younger.
Someone will snatch up Corey for sure.