Gumption
| Game 125: August 18, 2008 | |||
 Red Sox |
6 | W: Jon Lester (12-4) H: Manny Delcarmen (16) S: Jonathan Papelbon (33) |
72-53, 1 game winning streak |
| Orioles | 3 | L: Jeremy Guthrie (10-9) | 60-64, 1 game losing streak |
| Highlights: Lester’s performance last night was the antithesis of his peers’ collective outing on Sunday. He had a minor hiccup in the fourth, surrendering a home run to the hot-hitting Aubrey Huff that carried beyond the center field fence. Other than that four-bagger, only Millar mustered an extra base hit against Lester, but his one-out double to left proved fruitless. Huff’s double in the eighth off Papelbon, however, plated two runs and brought his club to within one run of the visitors. The Red Sox scored two more run themselves thanks to sloppy play by Alex Cintron and Millar at first. | |||
Kevin Millar went from Rally Karaoke Guy to “Orioles Magic” conjurer with his Charm City club. Wonderfully cheesy from the establishing shot which shows Jeremy Guthrie puffing on a clarinet when the instrument actually heard is a french horn to the players spelling out their team’s nickname with their arms, it made me wish the Red Sox had a song that was specifically written for them.
We do have “Sweet Caroline,” “Dirty Water,” and “Tessie” but there are flaws with each. The “Sweet Caroline” sing-along is a tradition for other teams, not just the Red Sox, although it is very singable. The Standells’ song is more marks the occasion of a victory and is not easy for a large crowd to sing. The remake of “Tessie” does spectacular job of tying in Red Sox history from the team’s inception to the present day, but again, not a particularly easy song to sing.
“Orioles Magic” is what I fear a Red Sox fight song would sound like. Ideally, the tune would be like an amiable ditty like Steve Goodman’s “Go, Cubs, Go!” or a jaunty jingle such as Al Trace and Walter Jagiello’s “Let’s Go, Go-Go White Sox.”
Not that Jason Bay requires any motivation. The self-effacing left fielder enjoyed his first multi-homer game and drove in four of his team’s runs. Bay also swiped his first bag as a Red Sox player in the sixth. (The second inning was a great inning if your name were “Jason;” Varitek went back-to-back with Bay, the catcher’s first homer since July 21.) I look forward to post-game shows when Bay performs well as I am enamored of Bay’s vocal quirk: before he answers a question he makes a sound that is hybrid of “yeah” and “uh” that for some reason I find utterly charming.
Josh Beckett is experiencing some numbness and tingling in his fingers which will cause him to miss his next start, but that is a minor concern in light of a former Red Sox player’s health issues.
Best wishes to Carl Yastrzemski, who requires heart bypass surgery and is a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital.
