Bleached
| Game 137: September 7, 2009 | |||
| Red Sox | 1 | L: Josh Beckett (14-6) | 79-58, 1 game losing streak |
 White Sox | 5 | W: Mark Buehrle (12-7) H: Tony Pena (10) | 69-70, 1 game winning streak |
| Highlights: One inning proved to be Beckett’s undoing. It started in the third with Jayson Nix standing stock-still when a dodgeable curveball hit him squarely. Home plate umpire Mark Carlson didn’t bother to call Nix on it and the third baseman took his base. | |||
With Jayson Nix on first Scott Podsednik continued to rake against Red Sox hurlers; his single up the middle was his seventh hit of the series. The pair of baserunners advanced on Alexei Ramirez’s sacrifice bunt. Dustin Pedroia, who was covering first, might have preferred that Kevin Youkilis fielded it rather than Josh Beckett, who fired a seed to beat the speedy shortstop.
A.J. Pierzynski, he of the frosted coiffure, grounded out to short to plate Nix and tie the game. Beckett’s frustration seemed to get the better of him at this point: he walked Jermaine Dye on four pitches and broke off a curve that bounded past Jason Varitek far enough so that even Dye could advance a base.
Mark Kotsay exacted revenged against his former team in the form of a humpback single to center. Later in the third the sluggish official at home, Mark Carlson, called Kotsay out at home on Carlos Quentin’s double to left. The replay showed that Kotsay got his hand on home and Varitek didn’t tag the utilityman’s forearm as indicated.
Kotsay looked relieved to be playing first. He barely had enough energy to argue Carlson’s call let alone have to trot that extra 300 feet or so to take a spot in the outfield.
Not that the White Sox needed that additional run. They tacked on another two with Quentin’s line drive home run in the eighth off Hideki Okajima. But at least Beckett avoided the scourge of the longball in this outing.
Mark Buehrle bewildered not only Dennis Eckersley but the entire Red Sox lineup with how he avoided damage. Jacoby Ellsbury scored in the first after singling over Chris Getz’s glove, swiping second, and dashing all the way to the dish on Youkilis’s single.
I don’t think it was all the day games that got to the Boston ballplayers but rather the albedo of Pierzynski’s tresses, which must fall somewhere between old snow and cumulus stratus clouds.
