After a rough start his last time out, Tim Wakefield was outstanding tonight as he went 8 strong innings to help the Boston Red Sox to a 2-1 win over the first place Toronto Blue Jays in front of 37,830 on a beautiful night for baseball at Fenway Park.
With the win, the Red Sox improve to 23-16 and are now 2.5 games behind the Blue Jays (27-15) for 1st place in the American League East.
Wakefield (5-2, 3.59) had the good knuckleball going tonight. In the 8 innings, he gave up the 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks while recording 3 strikeouts. Papelbon, for the first time in what seems like ages, pitched a perfect 9th inning for his 11th save of the season
Brian Tallet started for Cito Gaston’s Blue Jays and gave up 2 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5 in 6 innings. Jason Frasor struck out 1 in his inning of work and B.J. Ryan allowed 2 hits and had a strikeout in his inning.
Jacoby Ellsbury, who extended his hittings streak to a Red Sox-best 14 games this season, led the way with two hits. Dustin Pedroia, Jason Bay, Mike Lowell and Jeff Bailey had the other hits with Bailey and George Kottaras knocking in the runs.
All of the runs the Red Sox would need came in the 2nd inning.
Lowell led off with a single and went to second on a walk to J.D. Drew. After Julio Lugo popped out, Bailey knocked in Lowell from second to put the Red Sox up 1-0 as Drew went first to third. Kottaras made it 2-0 when his sacrifice fly scored Drew from third.
The only run the Blue Jays would get on the night would come from an old friend, Kevin Millar. He led off the 5th inning with a home run into the Green Monster seats to cut the Red Sox lead to 2-1.
This was exactly what the Red Sox needed tonight from Wakefield. Even though they had the day off yesterday, he was able to give the bullpen an extra day of rest. Plus he was practically unhittable as his knuckleball was just downright nasty tonight. He has been the best starting pitcher the Red Sox have had all season.
These same two teams will be back it again tomorrow night when Brad Penny and Brett Cecil will square off. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM EDT.
Notes and musings:
Toronto Blue Jays @ Boston Red Sox 5.19.09 box score
Coming into tonight, Boston’s bullpen has posted a 1.29 ERA (3 ER/21.0 IP) over the team’s last 7 games. Overall on the season, Red Sox relievers rank 2nd in the A.L. with a 3.02 mark (45 ER/122.0 IP), trailing only Kansas City (2.93).
Terry Francona has 493 career wins as Red Sox manager, 7 shy of reaching 500. He ranks 3rd in franchise history behind Joe Cronin (1,071) and Mike Higgins (560).
One year ago tonight Jon Lester tossed the 18th no-hitter in franchise history to beat the Royals, 7-0 at Fenway Park, the 5th ever by a Sox lefty.
Bay leads the Majors in 2009 with 5 homers and 12 RBI in “close and late” situations (7th inning or later with the batting team ahead by one run, tied, or with the tying run on base, at bat or on deck).
The Red Sox are 14-4 at home, second-best in the majors behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Wakefield, with 201 strikeouts against Toronto, is the fourth pitcher to have at least 200 strikeouts against the Blue Jays, joining Roger Clemens (292), Mike Mussina (243) and Randy Johnson (200).
