Thwarted
| Game 42: May 13, 2008 | |||
| Red Sox | 4 | L: Josh Beckett (4-3) | 24-18, 3 game losing streak |
 Orioles |
5 | W: Jeremy Guthrie (2-3) H: Jim Johnson (4) S: George Sherrill (14) |
20-19, 1 game winning streak |
| Highlights: The injuries and ailments mounted with J.D. Drew spraining his wrist in the third inning and Coco Crisp departing due to an upset stomach in the sixth. If those afflictions don’t sound very debilitating, you won’t be very impressed to learn that Clay Buchholz was placed on the 15-day disabled list because of a broken nail on his middle finger. With the all the medical experts secured by the Red Sox they couldn’t come up with a more dignity-sparing malady than a broken nail? I guess rookies don’t get the benefit of more important and painful-sounding infirmities like “avulsions.” | |||
If Coco Crisp’s tummy wasn’t bothering him perhaps he could have been around later in the game to contribute as he did early. Crisp led off with a single and advanced on David Ortiz’s double to the opposite field to ex-Red Sox malcontent, Jay Payton. Boston’s designated hitter handed off to Manny Ramirez, whose single up the middle scored Crisp and allowed Ortiz to stake out third base.
Aubrey Huff, an oft-mentioned trade target for the Red Sox, muffed Mike Lowell’s ground ball, permitting Ortiz to score. J.D. Drew smacked the ball right through Kevin Millar’s goal posts in the first inning, leading to the third run of the frame.
It’s rather sad the lengths Millar and Huff will go to to ingratiate themselves to Red Sox management.
That triad of runs would be the only offense the visitors would muster until the eighth. Super-sub and super-genius Alex Cora took into account humidity, wind direction and speed, pitch type and velocity, friction potential of the grass in right field, Nick Markakis’s arms strength, and Jacoby Ellsbury’s speed to calculate the angle and speed at which to strike the ball and drop a single to pull his team within a run.
The simpler thing would have been to launch a game-tying homer, but that is why the super-genius is merely a bench player rather than a regular.
Josh Beckett didn’t pitch terribly but did not bring skid-stopping stuff to Camden Yards. The four-score third, punctuated by a three-run blast by breakthrough outfielder Luke Scott, proved too much for Boston’s bats to overcome.
Ortiz groused about his strikeout in the ninth and was ejected by Laz Diaz, embodying the frustration surrounding Boston’s cold streak.
