Josh Beckett became MLB’s first 19 game winner on Saturday as he threw 3-hit baseball over 7 innings as his Red Sox spanked the Yankees 10-1. He also bolstered his Cy Young candidacy in the process.The win by the Sox pushed the lead in the AL East back up to 5 1/2 games with 15 days left to go in the season.
The game was a physical one as it featured two home plate collisions of Jorge Posada and also Kevin Youkilis leaving the game after taking a Chien-Mien Wang pitch in the forearm. Youk is day-to-day with a contusion on his forearm after the x-rays were negative.
Derek Jeter provided the only run of the game for the Yankees in the first inning. Beckett got Johnny Demon for the first out of the inning and then the Yankees’ captain crushed a Beckett fastball to the deepest part of Fenway in center field. After a Bobby Abreu ground out, Beckett walked AROD and Posada. He got out of the mini-jam as the slumping Hideki Matsui grounded out to Youk at first.
The local nine got the run back for Beckett in their half of the first. Dustin “Mighty Mouse” Pedroia continued his push towards rookie of the year as he reached on a single. Wang then got Youk to strikeout on three pitches for the first out. David “Big Papi” Ortiz, 3 for 3 on the day, moved Pedroia to second on a single. Pedroia came around to score Mike Lowell’s team leading 104th RBI of the season. The RBI also tied his career high. The sinkerball pitcher finished off the inning with ground ball outs by J.D. Drew and Jason Varitek.
Wang struggled with his control a little bit in the 3rd inning. After he got the first two outs of the inning, Wang had some trouble finding the strike zone, usually located between the letters and the knees over home plate. Wang wasn’t close as he issued walks to Big Papi, Lowell and Drew. He got lucky as Varitek grounded out a pitch that was probably a ball.
Meanwhile, the Sox ace was just cruising along like it was a normal day at the park. He allowed a single to Abreu in the third, struck out the side in the 4th and set the Yanks down in order in the 5th.
Mighty Mouse started off the 5th with a ground out to Jeter at short. With a 1-2 count, Wang hit Youk with a fastball that ran in on home. Since he had issues with his control, it didn’t look like he was throwing at him. Youk left the game and Jacoby Ellsbury came into run for him. Big Papi got his second single of the day and the speedster Ellsbury ended up on third base. Wang got Lowell to line out to Jeter for the second out. The much maligned Drew brought in the Sox second run of the day with a single as Ellsbury coasted home for a 2-1 Sox lead. Varitek grounded out to end the inning stranding two more runners. He had stranded three in the 3rd and these two gave him a total of five runners stranded thru 5 innings.
In the 6th, the home team got a lead-off double by Eric Hinske, who moved from left to first after Youk left the game in the 5th. He went to third on a Coco single. Lugo flew out to short left and Hinske really had no chance of scoring if he tagged up. With Pedroia at the plate, Coco got himself into scoring position by stealing second base. Pedroia hit a grounder to Cano, who went home with the throw. The throw beat Hinske to the plate and Hinske absolutely flattened Posada (pictured at top of the post). Posada held onto the ball and Hinske was out. This brought up Ellsbury. Before Ellsbury would deliver his single, Pedroia stole second uncontested. Ellsbury’s single extended his hitting streak to 13 games and drove in Coco to make it 3-1. Big Papi followed that up with a double to deep center that scored both Pedroia and Ellsbury. Ellsbury motored all the way from first base and the throw beat him to the plate but Posada was bracing for his second collision of the inning and never applied the tag as Ellsbury touched the plate. This gave the Sox a 5-1 lead and chased Wang from the game. Edwar Ramirez came in and got Lowell to strikeout for the final out of the inning.
Here is some video of the Hinske-Posada collision. Press play to see it.
Beckett was still cruising along at this point in the game. After he got the first two outs of the inning, he got some retaliation for Youk being hit as he plunked Jason Giambi with a pitch in the shoulder. Both teams were warned but Beckett made his point, “you hit my guy, I am hitting yours”. He then gave up a single to Cano and Giambi got to third. Beckett finished up his fine afternoon with a strikeout of Melky Cabrera.
Ramirez walked Drew to start the 7th and then got the Sox captain to strikeout. Ron Villone came into the game and walked Hinske. He was was replaced by Brian Bruney. Coco greeted Bruney with a ground rule double that easily scored Drew with Hinske moving to third. Bruney then walked Lugo but got Pedroia to strikeout. Joe Torre went to his bullpen again, bringing in the lefty Sean Henn to face Ellsbury. The move didn’t pay off as Ellsbury singled in Hinske and Crisp to make it 8-1 Sox. Henn followed that up with a walk to Big Papi, loading up the bases for Lowell. Before Lowell got to the plate, Torre went to his bullpen for Russ Ohlendorf. He didn’t start off well as he walked Lowell bringing in the fourth run of the inning. Drew struck out to end the 41 minute half inning.
Hinske provided the final margin of the game with a home run in the 8th. Mike Timlin and Bryan Corey mopped up the game for the Sox.
Tomorrow’s game brings us the geriatric pitching matchup of Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. Gametime is 8:05 PM and will be televised as part of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN.
If you want to read about how bad the FOX announcers were, check out this post from sexy Texy from Center Field. I think she sums it up pretty well.
