There’s always that chance when you get rid of someone that they may come back to haunt you one day.
Case in point, Mark Kotsay was traded to the Chicago White Sox back on July 28th for Brian Anderson. And with the Boston Red Sox still having eight games with them at the time, it was inevitable that they would have to face him.
Kotsay led the charge for the White Sox with a 3-for-4 night including a home run and three RBIs as they absolutely pounded Paul Byrd and the Red Sox 12-2 in front of 28,839 at U.S. Cellular Field.
It was the 500th win of Ozzie Guillen’s career as his team improves to 67-69. They sit seven games behind the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central. The Red Sox fall to 78-56 and remain 7.5 games behind the New York Yankees, who got shutout 6-0 by the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East.
The Red Sox lead is down to 2.5 games in the wild card as the Texas Rangers won on Friday night. The Tampa Bay Rays are still six games behind as well.
After being pretty much lights out his last start, Byrd was far from that this time around. He really didn’t have much of anything to offer and it showed. He gave up seven runs on ten hits with three strikeouts in just 2 1/3 innings.
Junichi Tazawa wasn’t any better than Byrd was either. He got rocked for five runs on seven hits and a walk with a strikeout in 3 2/3 innings. At least Manny Delcarmen and Takashi Saito had decent nights on the mound as MDC allowed a hit and a walk but struck out the side in his inning. Saito gave up two hits and recorded a strikeout.
Terry Francona pretty much waved the white flag in the bottom of the fifth when he made wholesale changes, seven, to the lineup. The only member of the starting nine not to be replaced was Alex Gonzalez. The only position player not to play for the Red Sox was Mike Lowell.
Kevin Youkilis had a hit and an RBI as did George Kottaras. Dustin Pedroia, Nick Green, Victor Martinez, David Ortiz, Joey Gathright, J.D. Drew and Gonzalez all had the other hits.
After an ugly Friday night, the Red Sox will look to Tim Wakefield to get them back on track. He’ll be opposed by Gavin Floyd on Saturday afternoon at 4:05 p.m.
