Three Feet High and Rising
The Red Sox are finally meeting the lofty expectations fans had of them, against the team with the best record in the majors no less. The visiting baseball squad swept their opponents and secured third place in the AL East, a heartening turnaround from an underperforming team whose record was hovering around .500. Given the pitching match-up it seemed to be a game that Boston had little chance of winning, but Matt Garza’s command was as straggly as his goatee.
The volatile Rays starter lasted just five innings with a disastrous line of 6 hits, 6 runs (all earned), 5 walks, 3 strikeouts, and 3 home runs. Prior to this game Garza had surrendered five home runs in 64⅔ innings pitched.
Heidi Watney visited the catwalk and roof of Tropicana Field in a foiled attempt to end it all because of the Celtics’ precipitous fall. Or it was a just a photo opportunity granted by someone on the Trop’s grounds crew wishing to be featured in a segment on “The Ultimate Red Sox Show,” or maybe something more lascivious.
Not only are the Celtics attempting to replicate the Bruins’ choke job by losing Game 5 113-92 but are sustaining concussions in the process. Glen Davis and Marquis Daniels were both felled by inadvertent blows to the head, severely depleting Doc Rivers’s options off the bench in Game 5 and possibly in the future. Add to the injury woes the potential for Kendrick Perkins to face a one-game suspension because of his accumulation of seven technical fouls in the postseason and you have a recipe for catastrophe.
Home cooking will hopefully cure the Celtics’ ills and sustain the Red Sox’s five-game winning streak. The roundballers return to the Hub for a Game 6 showdown on Friday and the baseballers begin a four-game series against the hapless Royals at Fenway on Thursday.
| Game 48: May 26, 2010 | ||
 Red Sox27-21 | 11 | W: John Lackey (5-3) |
| 2B: Darnell McDonald (5) 3B: Adrian Beltre (1) HR: Adrian Beltre – 2 (5), David Ortiz (10) | ||
| Rays 32-15 | 3 | L: Matt Garza (5-3) |
| 2B: Carl Crawford (15), Carlos Pena (6) HR: Ben Zobrist (3) | ||
