Reawaken
| Game 111: August 10, 2009 | |||
| Tigers | 5 | L: Zach Miner (5-2) | 59-52, 1 game losing streak |
 Red Sox | 6 | BS: Manny Delcarmen (2) W: Ramon Ramirez (6-3) S: Jonathan Papelbon (28) | 63-48, 1 game winning streak |
| Highlights: The Bad Fan award goes the folks near home plate who got in Victor Martinez’s way on Marcus Thames’s pop up in foul territory. Although Martinez held on to get the second out of the first inning, he should not have had to reach through a thicket of outstretched arms to do so. | |||
So this is what a win feels like. What working the count looks like. What scoring runs in multiple innings looks like. What recovering from a bad relief outing looks like. What a clean save looks like. The local nine got reacquainted with Fenway and with their former selves, snapping their six-game losing streak.
Brad Penny pitched he usually does: competent but not spectacular. He’ll give up 4 to 6 runs a game; it’s up to the batters to get 5 to 7 runs with Penny on the bump.
Dustin Pedroia ignited his team with a two-run homer in the first. So inspiring was Pedroia’s circuit clout it even helped Nick Green clear the left field wall to kick off the second inning with a four-bagger of his own. David Ortiz lined a shot to right but was caught off first base by his unmindful baserunning. Despite the 9-6-3 put out, Jacoby Ellsbury trotted across home plate for the fourth Red Sox run of the game.
A volley of beanballs between the teams transpired in the fourth. Brad Penny hit Miguel Cabrera with the first pitch of the inning, something he would come to regret as the Tigers got within two runs by the middle of the inning. Edwin Jackson retaliated by plunking Kevin “Craig Biggio” Youkilis in the bottom of the inning. As Dennis Eckersley said, “You hit my first baseman, I’ll hit yours.”
Manny Delcarmen has been unsound on the mound and his struggles resulted in a two-run game-tying rally by the visitors in the seventh. Was that the collective groan of Red Sox fans across six states or a Doran Cunningham 6-B fog horn in a ship horn symphony?
One of the main reasons for the Red Sox’s decline is Jason Bay’s second-half downturn. Bay walked to load the bases in the first and homered in the fifth. Without him reestablishing himself as the offensive force he was before the All-Star break there won’t be much chance of Boston making the postseason let alone being successful in the playoffs.
