Destination Red Sox Nation is our look at how the minor league teams of the Boston Red Sox fare each night. Game story links and links to team stats and league standings are after the jump.
The Red Sox have 4 of their minor league teams in the playoffs. The Pawtucket Red Sox, Portland Sea Dogs, Lancaster JetHawks and Lowell Spinners all clinched playoff berths. Only the JetHawks and Spinners remain alive.
Dan Johnson’s first at-bat in a Tampa Bay Rays uniform was a solo home run off of Jonathan Papelbon and 3 batters they added another run to beat the Boston Red Sox 5-4 in front of 37,573 at Fenway Park.
The win for the Rays increases their lead in the AL East back to 1.5 games over the Red Sox. This was the first win for the Rays at Fenway Park all season (1-7).
Jason Bay's 2-run homer gave the Red Sox a short lived 4-3 lead.
Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th inning, Kevin Youkilis worked a 2-out walk off of Dan Wheeler. Jason Bay followed with a screaming liner that just got over the top of the Green Monster to send Fenway into a frenzy as the Red Sox went up 4-3.
Hideki Okajima was coming back to the mound in the 9th but when Tampa Bay’s pinch-hitter Justian Ruggiano was announced, Terry Francona went to the bullpen for his closer. Rays skipper Joe Maddon countered with Johnson who ended up hitting a 96 MPH fastball into the seats in right field to tie the game at 4. Wily Aybar followed with a line out to center and then Fernando Perez nearly gave the Rays the lead as his hit was just short of the top of the wall as he ended up at second. Perez came into score on a Dioner Navarro double to put the Rays up 5-4. Papelbon recovered to get the final two outs of the inning.
Troy Percival came on to try and close the door for the Rays and he walked Mark Kotsay to start the inning. After two failed attempts bunting, Jason Varitek ended up striking out on a called strike 3. David Ortiz got ahead of Percival 3-0 in the count but on a 3-1 fastball flew out to right field. Francona then had Jacoby Ellsbury pinch-run for Kotsay and he ended up stealing second and ending up on third as Navarro’s throw went into the outfield. Percival got Coco Crisp to pop out to second base to end the game.
Daisuke Matsuzaka started the game for the Red Sox and was definitely not at his best tonight. He went 5+ innings, allowing 3 runs on 8 hits and 4 walks while striking out 5. The bullpen sans Papelbon kept the Red Sox in the game as Javier Lopez, Manny Delcarmen and Hideki Okajima combined to work 3 innings of scoreless baseball.
Mike Lowell led the offense with 2 hits, including a solo home run. Coco, Dustin Pedroia, Youk and Bay had the other hits for the Red Sox with Bay’s being huge at the time. Youkilis had the other RBI, his 99th of the year, for the Red Sox.
Donald Thomas was placed on IR by the Miami Dolphins today.
Former UConn Huskies and current Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Donald Thomas was placed on injured reserve by the team ending his rookie year after just 1 game. Thomas was injured during the Dolphins loss to the New York Jets on Sunday.
He was wearing a protective boot after the game and was planning on practicing this week and playing against the Arizona Cardinals this weekend but the injury is obviously a little more serious than anticpated.
Donald is expected to have surgery to repair the ankle this week.
It is really is a shame for Thomas. He went from being possibly released to making the team as the starting right guard 3 weeks before the season started and now will have to watch his teammates from the sideline all season.
I always knew Pittsburgh Steelers fans were a bunch of fucking asshole douchebags and this just proves it. Remember you bunch of out of work drunken factory workers your team comes here November 30th. You better hope and pray they can Ben Toothlisberger upright and on the field because that overrated, neckbearded fuck is about the 12th best QB in the league behind:
I’m buying one of these and sending it to Foxboro care of Rodney Harrison.
According to Broadcast Industry sources, NESN and Don Orsillo have agreed to a four-year contract to remain as the Boston Red Sox play-by-play man on the regional cable network.
The new contract, which runs through 2012, also allows Orsillo to call post season games for TBS. He is not the only current Sox broadcaster with national ties as Orsillo’s boothmate Jerry Remy does some occasional work for FOX Sports on the Saturday afternoon games and Red Sox radio announcer Dave O’Brien does television play-by-play for ESPN and MLB international.
Orsillo, who just recently called his 1,000th major league game, called his first Red Sox game in April of 2001 and it was Hideo Nomo’s no-hitter in Baltimore. In addition to Red Sox broadcast duties Orsillo has also called basball games for the Pawtucket Red Sox, Pittsfield Mets and Binghamton Mets. He has also called hockey games for the Springfield Falcons and does NESN’s Boston College basketball games and Providence College basketball games for ESPN Plus.
Orsillo grew up in Madison, N.H., and is a 1991 graduate of Northeastern University in Boston with a B.S. in communications. He has won two New England Emmy’s for his play-by-play work and was named the 2005 Massachusetts Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He has also appeared in the red Sox themed movie “Fever Pitch”.
If the weather will cooperate tonight, the Boston Red Sox will take on the Tampa Bay Rays with the chance to take over first place in the AL East.
85-57
1. Akinori Iwamura, 2B
2. Ben Zobrist, CF
3. Carlos Pena, 1B
4. Cliff Floyd, DH
5. Willy Aybar, 3B
6. Eric Hinske, LF
7. Dioner Navarro, C
8. Gabe Gross, RF
9. Jason Bartlett, SS
– Scott Kazmir, SP
85-58
1. Coco Crisp, CF
2. Jed Lowrie, SS
3. Dustin Pedroia, 2B
4. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
5. Jason Bay, LF
6. Mike Lowell, 3B
7. Mark Kotsay, RF
8. Jason Varitek, C
9. Jeff Bailey, DH
– Daisuke Matsuzaka, SP
And here is how the hitters have fared against tonight’s starting pitchers.
The Boston Red Sox have issued the following statement concerning the weather tonight.
The current weather forecast (provided by the Red Sox private weather service, Meteorlogix) in the vicinity of Fenway Park calls for the possibility of scattered showers to move through the area during the late afternoon and evening hours.
The Fenway Park gates will open at the regularly scheduled time of 5:05 p.m., and the Red Sox are hopeful that tonight’s game with the Tampa Bay Rays, which is scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m., will be played. However, the Red Sox want to alert our fans to the current forecast and to the possibility of delay.
This forecast is of course subject to change as the day progresses. Additional updates will be provided as necessary.
UConn Huskies head football coach Randy Edsall talks about the rule and the call from the BYU-UW game on Saturday.
The Big East Conference is off to a rough start in football.
West Virginia’s loss on Saturday was a big blow to the conference.
Donald Brown and Scott Lutrus were named to the Big East Honor Roll for last week’s games.
Only 400 seats remain for Saturday’s tilt against Virginia.
Speaking of the Virginia Cavaliers, you check out their news over at Dirtychili.
Brian Bennett of ESPN.com has his Big East power rankings out and has the Huskies 2nd.
That groan you heard around 3 p.m. on Monday afternoon was New England Patriots fans when the team announced that quarterback Tom Brady would have surgery on his injured left knee and miss the entire season.
That being said Matt Cassel is now the Patriots quarterback going forward. I don’t see Bill Belichick signing a veteran and then replacing Cassel with him unless it’s someone like Drew Bledsoe or Vinny Testeverde both who have experience in the system. More likely anyone who is signed will be Cassel’s backup with rookie Kevin O’Connell acting as the third quarterback.
As of Monday afternoon Belichick said contrary to media reports the team had not worked out any quarterbacks on Monday but he wasn’t ruling anything out during the week. He also added that people were contacting him.
In Friday’s Patriots-Jets game preview I have some background information on the man who will be, at least for now, leading the Patriots offense. As I note in the preview that game was supposed to be quite the quarterback match up. New York’s Brett Favre has the longest consecutive starts streak for a NFL QB, Indianapolis’ Peyton Manning is second and Brady was third. It was also suppose to match up two guys who between them have 4 championships, 6 Super Bowl appearances, 4 NFL MVP’s, 13 Pro Bowl appearances and 4 All-Pro nominations. It was suppose to match up two first ballot Hall of Famers. Now it’s a game between a savvy 18 year vet and a fourth year player making his first career start.
If you just can’t get enough info on Cassel (pronounced Castle) Tim Graham’s AFC East Blog has some stuff on him.
Alex Marvez of FOXSports.com claims the team wasn’t prepared to handle an injury to Brady. See that’s why Marvez writes for a website and Belichick and Scott Pioli evaluate NFL talent.
On Monday afternoon Brady and NBCSports.com Tom Curran swapped some email and Brady say’s he still likes the team’s chances.
Here is Belichick’s Monday afternoon press conference.
WEEI.com’s Mike Petraglia offers up the team’s “Band of Brothers” mentality.
Usually we start with this but today we’re going to close with Belichick’s weekly interview on WEEI with the Big Show crew and Matt Cassel’s post game press conference after Sunday’s win.
I will say this in wrapping up. The New England Patriots are much more than Tom Brady. Sure the offense goes through him but now he isn’t here and it will go through Matt Cassel. It doesn’t mean that Randy Moss and Wes Welker forgot how to catch or Laurence Maroney can’t run or Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren can’t stuff a run or that Rodney Harrison won’t lay someone out.
This team over the last seven or eight years has been remarkably resilient. We’ve seen Drew Bledsoe’s injury, Tedy Brischi’s stroke, the knee injuries to Rodney Harrison, the foot injury to Ty Law and Spygate. It likes, no it loves, to circle the wagons and say screw you to anyone who doesn’t stand with them. Win or lose regardless of record they will do that again.
I expect nothing less.
456. We all know baseball is a numbers game and for the Boston Red Sox, the number 456 is just another number now in their history. The sellout streak that started on May 15, 2003 has brought over 16 million fans to Fenway Park, many of them repeat visitors, many new faces. During that time, we’ve seen two Red Sox World Championships and countless numbers of great games, most notably the no-hitters by Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester.
[flash http://ianbethune.com/pregame.FLV]
Sellout #456 saw Lester throw another gem to help the Red Sox get to within .5 games of the first place Tampa Bay Rays. Something we’ve been seeing as of late from Lester is complete control on the mound and he showed that again last night. I hate to say this and compare him to New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte when he was younger but that’s who Lester reminds me of right now especially with the action that he has on his cutter and his mound presence.
We truly have a star pitcher, an ace, in our midst and as Steve said in a comment last night, he is probably the best homegrown starting pitcher that we have. You could argue that Jonathan Papelbon is the best homegrown pitcher but he’s in the bullpen now. And with the likes of Justin Masterson, Michael Bowden and a mentally straight Clay Buchholz, the future is bright for the Red Sox. And that’s not taking into account players like Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jed Lowrie.
Given the way that Lester pitched last night and the way Rays starter Edwin Jackson recovered from the bad first inning, the game could have gone a lot longer than it did. Luckily for the Red Sox, Lester was just downright nasty and Papelbon came in firing fastballs to make those 3 first inning runs stand up to give the Red Sox a chance to take over first place for the first time since before the All-Star break.