Professional
Game 128: August 28, 2005
Tigers (62-66), 3
Red Sox (74-54), 11
L: Nate Robertson (6-11)
W: David Wells (11-6)
Time to retitle this blog to something a bit more accurate, like The Bill Mueller Pompom Waving Anarchy Cheerleading Faction. You’ll notice that I didn’t mention his 3rd inning RBI single from last night’s game, the one where he got thrown out at second base trying to get into scoring position. (Does mentioning something in the course of saying you’re not going to mention it mentioning it?)
Mueller hit his 8th homer (his 2nd from the right side of the plate) in the bottom of the 4th inning, eliciting this puzzling call from Don Orsillo: “It’s got a lot enough.” Admittedly, when Mueller is at the plate one doesn’t expect a home run each time, but Orsillo seemed genuinely surprised that the ball’s trajectory took it over the monster. Curt Gowdy was honored at the game and had just left the booth following his ingame visit. Jerry Remy deadpanned, “Good thing Gowdy wasn’t here to hear that call.” Then Remy followed with some sage advice for his colleague: “When something happens that’s surprising, just say, “Can you believe it?” and leave it at that.” Mueller scored twice and went 3 for 4, increasing his average to .303 and OBP to .380.
Mueller also dazzled defensively with two plays that had him ranging to his right to stop grounders from capering down the left field line, righting himself with his characteristic quickness, and then throwing rockets across the diamond to hose the runners at first base. In the 4th he nabbed Craig Monroe’s grounder and in the 5th duplicated the effort with a ball hit by Placido Polanco. Both times he assisted Wells by keeping the leadoff hitters off the basepaths. The third baseman did have an error in the 3rd inning when he threw a Polanco grounder towards Kevin Millar that knocked him galley-west, but the Red Sox offense would provide more than enough runs.
Today was New Hampshire Day at Fenway Park, so you were either living free or dying. World champion skier and gold medalist Bode Miller appeared in the pre-game, and something tells me that the Easton native would have gotten along very well with Mark Bellhorn. His big thing is that he used hourglass-shaped skis before anyone else. Hooray, technology.
Other fun moments:
- David Ortiz shimmying a ground ball single through the shift after he bunted a pitch foul. The bunt may have forced the Tigers to realign defensively, allowing the hit and Johnny Damon to score.
- Jason Varitek lofting an 0-2 pitch into the triangle to score Manny Ramirez in the 6th inning.
- Ramirez goofing on Ortiz for not scoring on his double in the 7th.
