Empyreal Environs

Game 149: September 18, 2005
Athletics (82-67), 12
Red Sox (87-62), 3
W: Kirk Saarloos (10-7)
L: Matt Clement (13-6)
1.5 games ahead in the division
1 game losing streak

Given that the middle games of this series were one-run squeakers that the Red Sox could have easily lost, I’ve gotten over my disappointment about this blowout game and am somewhat content that this series is shelved as a split. The season series closes in Boston’s favor, 6-4.

But who took Matt Clement’s arm and replaced it with Kevin Brown’s? Clement only lasted 1.1 innings, and that was 1.1 innings too long. He was touched for 8 hits, 7 earned runs, 1 walk, and 1 home run.

Jeremi Gonzalez into the game in the 2nd inning and was forced to go much longer than he usually pitches. In his 3.2 innings of work he gave up 5 hits, 5 earned runs, 3 walks, 1 strikeout, and 2 round-trippers. Apparently the A’s took offense to my assessment of their offense as anemic and atrophied.

NESN has a great new video technology called X-mo that it has been showing off these past few games. Some of the footage is truly remarkable: the vibration of a bat as it absorbs the force of a Clement fastball or the torque of Gonzalez’s arm as he delivers his pitch to the plate. What we do not need, however, are multiple X-mo replays of Kevin Youkilis’s de-fingernailing. Youkilis came into the game in the 7th inning only to be mauled by Marco Scutaro’s sharp grounder in the first at bat of the inning. The third baseman managed to throw the ball to get Scutaro out at first but had to withstand agony to do so.

This prompted the following quirky defensive formation:

• Adam Hyzdu switched from left to center
• Roberto Petagine replaced Hyzdu in left
• Alejandro Machado moved from center to shortstop
• Alex Cora shifted from shortstop to third base

The game was illuminated by only a few flashes of Boston offensive brilliance. Bill Mueller hit his 9th four-bagger in the 6th inning on a 2-0 pitch in to the first few rows of seats in the right field boxes. In the 7th Machado had his first major league hit with a leadoff double that missed being a homer in the right field seats by just a few feet. The versatile call-up would go on to score after being moved over to third via John Olerud’s ground out and driven in by Tony Graffanino’s double to left field.

As I write this, there are rumors on Red Sox message boards that Craig Hansen and Hanley Ramirez will be called up to the majors shortly. Time to get a post ready in the “Player Transactions” category. Speaking of, I had ignored Hyzdu’s addition to the 40-man roster on September 15th. The move was precipitated by Gabe Kapler’s injury, which came too late to allow him to be placed on the 60-day disabled list and therefore required the unconditional release of Matt Perisho.