There’s probably no one on the Boston Red Sox that feels worse than Nick Green after his error cost them the game.
Franklin Gutierrez knocked in Ronny Cedeno from second base in the bottom of the 9th to give the Seattle Mariners a 3-2 walk-off win over the Red Sox in front of 40,833 at Safeco Field in Seattle.
After the Red Sox left George Kottaras, pinch-running after a Jason Varitek double, stranded at second, Ramon Ramirez came on for Hideki Okajima in the bottom of the 9th.
He started the inning with a strikeout of Kenji Johjima and then got Yuniesky Betancourt to line out to Mike Lowell, who made an amazing grab. Cedeno reached when Green’s throwed sailed into the stands giving Cedeno second base. The Red Sox elected to intentionally walk Ichiro Suzuki to face Gutierrez who knocked in the game winner as Bay’s throw to the plate was just a little late.
The Red Sox finished up the road trip at 2-4 and the loss drops them to 22-16 on the season. The Mariners improve to 18-20.
Justin Masterson gave the Red Sox a quality start in what should be his last start before moving back to the bullpen. He went 6 1/3 innings, allowing 2 runs on 9 hits while recording 6 strikeouts. He didn’t walk anyone.
Manny Delcarmen allowed a hit and had a strikeout in an inning of work while Hideki Okajima struck out 1 in 2 innings. Shockingly, Ramirez was charged with an earned run although I highly suspect that will get changed.
Jason Varga got the start for the Mariners and went 5 1/3 innings, allowing 2 runs (1 earned) on 7 hits and 3 walks. Once again the Mariners bullpen was strong as Sean White, Mark Lowe and David Aardsma combined to give up 1 hit, 2 walks and had 5 strikeouts over the final 3 2/3 innings.
J.D. Drew and Green both led the Red Sox with two hits each with Drew adding an RBI. Jacoby Ellsbury extended his hitting streak to 13 games with his only hit of the afternoon while Dustin Pedroia, Jeff Bailey and Varitek had the other hits with Varitek driving in the other run.
Vargas started the 2nd inning by getting Mike Lowell to fly out. Drew followed with a single and went to second when Betancourt made a throwing error. Bailey singled to shallow left to load up the bases for the Captain who hit a sac fly to bring in Drew to put the Red Sox out front 1-0.
The game became quickly tied in the bottom half when Russell Branyan took Masterson deep to lead off the inning. Masterson recovered to get the next two outs but then Betancourt doubled. He would come into score when Cedeno tripled to deep left center to put the Mariners up 2-1.
Drew tied the game up in the 4th inning with a lead off home run.
Both teams had numerous chances to score the rest of the game but in the end it was the error that cost the Red Sox the game.
The Red Sox will head back to the east coast now as they leave the west coast behind for the rest of the 2009 regular season. They are off tomorrow and will host the first place Toronto Blue Jays in a 3-game set starting Tuesday night. Tim Wakefield will make the start for the Red Sox and he’ll be opposed by Brian Tallet.
