Wooden
| Game 19: April 27, 2009 | |||
 Red Sox | 3 | W: Manny Delcarmen (1-0) S: Jonathan Papelbon (5) | 13-6, 11 game winning streak |
| Indians | 1 | L: Kerry Wood (0-1) | 7-13, 1 game losing streak |
| Highlights: May Tim Wakefield never retire. He wasn’t part of the decision, but his seven scoreless innings of work with one hit, four walks, and five strikeouts was only surpassed by Cliff Lee’s demonstration that his Cy Young performance was not a fluke. Lee allowed five hits but no runs or walks and struck out five batters over eight innings. | |||
Cliff Lee and Tim Wakefield made such quick work of the batters that Kerry Wood and Jonathan Papelbon decided that they would let the hitters get their hacks in.
Until Wood entered the game the visitors didn’t have an extra base hit. He fed Dustin Pedroia a steady diet of fastballs and tried to get the second baseman to swing at a slider down and away with the count full, but Pedroia didn’t bite. With Pedroia on first thanks to the free pass David Ortiz somehow singled to the one part of center Grady Sizemore can’t cover. Kevin Youkilis flied out to right and for the first time since April 22 he didn’t reach base.
With his powerful yet effortless stroke Jason Bay made me wish that he and the Red Sox had come to an agreement on an extension during the offseason. He all but ensured that the winning streak would go up to 11, just like in Spinal Tap.
Papelbon wasn’t his complete shutdown self, however. Consecutive singles to center field by Shin-Soo Choo and Ryan Garko put the tying run in the box.
Mark DeRosa came off an outstanding year with the Cubs and, much like his teammate in Wood, came over from Chicago to hopefully fill in the gaps that have kept Cleveland from getting to the World Series. Neither seem to have fully adjusted to the American League just yet, but DeRosa did make a game of the series opener by driving in the first run of the evening. It would be the only run for the home team, however.
Sizemore and Jacoby Ellsbury both made superlative catches behind their starters. Sizemore stole an extra base hit from Youkilis in the fourth with a snare on the left-center warning track. Not to be outdone, Ellsbury countered witih a diving grab of a swiftly falling liner off the bat of DeRosa. Ellsbury may never wrest the Gold Glove from the hands of Sizemore, but in my opinion Ellsbury exhibits smarter overall play in the outfield. The Red Sox centerfielder foregoes the spectacular play to make the smart play. Rather than dive for Mike Lowell’s line drive in the ninth as Sizemore did, allowing the hobbling third baseman a triple, Ellsbury would not have not let the ball get past him.
Grady’s got his ladies, but Jacoby’s got his... Ellsbury’s got his... Jake’s got his... well, he’ll obviously never get a Gold Glove because his name can’t be made into a cutesy fan club moniker. Ell’s Belles?
