Tim Wakefield went seven shut out innings allowing 4 hits and 1 walk while striking out 5 as the Boston hurler expanded his gaudy record against Tampa Bay to 19-2, including 9-0 in Tropicana Field. While Wakefield was masterful on the mound, Mike Lowell led the offense with a pair of hits, a two-run double in the first and a fifth inning solo homerun, as the Red Sox defeated Scott Kazmir and the listless Devil Rays 6-0.
The Red Sox came out hacking against Kazmir banging out five runs on six hits in the first two innings. Dustin Pedroia got it started with a single to left, Kazmir walked Kevin Youkilis, newly acquired Bobby Kielty grounded back to the mound and all Kazmir could get was a force on Youkilis at second for the first out. Manny Ramirez struck out and just as it looked like Kazmir would escape a jam Lowell doubled down the line in left to score Pedroia and Kielty and give the Sox a 2-0 lead.
Boston would add three more runs in the second of the young lefty. Coco Crisp would get a ground rule double to right on a ball the grazed Delmon Young’s glove and hit the foul line and bounced into the seats. Julio Lugo grounded to short moving Crisp to third, Kevin Cash walked, Pedroia singled to left for his second hit in as many innings to score Crisp and it was 3-0 Boston. Youkilis singled to almost the exact same spot to load the bases with one out. After Kielty whiffed Ramirez made Kazmir pay with a single to center to score Cash and Pedroia and it was 5-0. Ramirez would move to second on a wild pitch, Joe Maddon decided to put Lowell on to load the bases and face J.D. Drew who grounded out to second to end the inning.
Meanwhile Wakefield was up to his old tricks against Tampa Bay silencing the Devil Ray bats. After walking Akinori Iwamura to start the first Wake retired the next 7 hitters before Josh Paul got a single to left. Wakefield would only allow singles in the fourth to Carlos Pena and in the fifth to Josh Wilson while striking out four while keeping Tampa Bay scoreless through five innings.
The Sox added a run in the top of the fifth with one out when Lowell hit a solo homerun, his 17th of the year and 3rd RBI of the night, to make it 6-0. The homerun ended a streak of 8 in-a-row retired by Kazmir. Kazmir after a rough start had settled in and through five innings inspite of being banged around early had struck out seven Red Sox batters including Drew twice.
After getting the first two outs in the top of the sixth including making Cash his 8th strikeout victim, Kazmir walked Pedroia, his fourth of the evening, ending the night for him as Maddon pulled him for reliever Juan Salas who got Youkilis to fly out to end the inning.
Manny Delcarmen would come on in the 8th and pitched a clean inning notching a strike out. Mike Timlin came in to close out the game and the shut out in the ninth, working a 1-2-3 inning, getting one strike out.
Same two teams play tomorrow at Tropicana Field when Jon Lester faces Andy Sonnanstine at 7:05 p.m.
Notes and Musings:
Red Sox at Devil Rays Box Score
Throw Strikes with Beckett, Josh’s foundation to help children, will hold a bowling fundraiser on September 13th too help raise funds. For more info you can log onto beckettbowl.com
Kevin Cash caught Tim Wakefield tonight. Cash has been catching two knuckle ball pitchers in Pawtucket this season, John Barnes and Charlie Zink. He says he caught” two or three starts of each”. He actually has caught Barnes twice and Zink 5 times. He has caught Wakefield in bullpen sessions before.
Cash played for Tampa Bay in 2005 and three seasons in Toronto from 2002-04. He is also a Tampa native and had friends and family at the game.
Tonight was the first game of an 11-day 10-game road trip, with three in Tampa Bay, 4 games in Chicago and a three game series in New York with the Yankees.
The Sox are 22-16 since the All-Star Break. At 75-50 the Red Sox have the best win percentage in major league baseball at .600. This is just the 6th time since 1952 that Boston has had 75 wins after 125 games. In six weeks the AL East lead has gone from 12 games to 5 games.
J.D. Drew is on pace to hit 8 HRs and have 58 RBI. Where have you gone Dwight Evans? Hell Trot Nixon would have put up better numbers. In fact you have to go back to the late 1940’s to find a Red Sox RF who hit less than 10 HRs and had less than 60 RBI.
Fans heckled Eric Gagne` as he walked home Friday night after blowing the save against Los Angeles. Welcome to Beantown big guy. No word on if it Dan Shaughnessy was actually one of the hecklers.
The Red Sox are 87-37 against Tampa since 2001 and are 47-33 in Tropicana Field and hold a 106-55 overall edge.
A mouse, or maybe a rat, scurried between the NESN TV booth and the WRKO Radio booth during the top of the 4th inning. Joe Castiglione didn’t see it at first until Don Orsillo tried to get his attention. No word on whether the mouse, or rat, was there to replace Glenn Geffner behind the mic.
They brought in “rat boy” to try to exterminate it, RemDawg hoped it didn’t hide in his bag. It evidentially isn’t the first rat sighting at the Trop. In the middle of the 6th they found the rat, well it was a mouse, below the WRKO Radio booth. Castiglione was bailing and Geffner was basically standing on his chair like a lil’ hairless girl.
Raymond stopped by the NESN booth in the 7th. Don and Jerry asked him to eat the rat but Raymond had other ideas and silly stringed them both.
Jonathan Papelbon is one save away from becoming the first Red Sox pitcher to have two 30 save seasons.
Tim Wakefield is tied for the AL lead in wins with 15. He has 10 wins since June 12th.
Raymond made a “Coco Crossing” sign for Coco Crisp so that he wouldn’t get taken out like he did in Seattle.
