Carved
| Game 135: September 5, 2009 | |||
| Red Sox | 1 | L: Tim Wakefield (11-4) | 78-57, 2 game losing streak |
 White Sox | 5 | W: Gavin Floyd (11-9) | 68-69, 4 game winning streak |
| Highlights: Apparently in the White Sox clubhouse if you pitch eight or more innings you get shaving cream pie shoved in your face. If the same happened on the Red Sox Josh Beckett would have five, Jon Lester and Wakefield three a piece, and Brad Penny and Clay Buchholz one each. Oh wait, Penny’s came when he got demoted to the National League. Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Smoltz have been lucky to reach eight innings over two starts. | |||
The given name Gavin is derived from Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew and one of the knights of the Round Table. One aspect of Gawain’s character is that he is strongest during the day but as night approaches his power wanes. Floyd’s day-night splits show that the same is true for him, but in general pitchers have better statistics in the day (National League and American League data here; on the older side but still interesting).
Tim Wakefield made his first start since August 26. His first inning was Paul Byrd-like but he finished with five solid innings of shutout baseball.
To catch Wakefield Victor Martinez uses his first baseman’s glove instead of a catcher’s mitt. When the Red Sox backstop drifted to the opposition’s dugout in pursuit of a foul ball off Jayson Nix’s bat in the second inning, Joey Cora wrested the glove off of Martinez’s hand. Cora then spit polished it and handed it back.
While it is an issue of being able to platoon J.D. Drew and Jacoby Ellsbury, if only there were some way to have kept Mark Kotsay instead of Rocco Baldelli. Kotsay hit home runs the series opener and this game, probably rejoicing in taking it to his former team.
Tim McCarver continued his rapid descent into senility. He has an odd speech characteristics of elision and consonant mutation, calling Amalie Benjamin “Molly” and Terry Francona “Krankona.” McCarver thought it a shame that Nick Green, who broke up Gavin Floyd’s perfect game in the sixth, was pinch hit for with Casey Kotchman in the eighth. Obviously, pulling a career .240/.307/.353 hitter in favor of a .270/.338/.409 is the height of idiocy.
Too bad no one called Krankona on their iPod to alert him of his atrocious in-game management.
