Triple Crown
Mike Lowell, whose last name is shared by a city in Massachusetts, hit three doubles. All three Boston area teams, the Bruins, Celtics, and Red Sox, won their respective games tonight. Lowell’s doubles cosmically aligned with the fact the hockey and basketball teams played the second games of their respective series.
Just like how today’s team meeting cured all the club’s ills.
Terry Francona is a savvy skipper; it’s no accident that the meeting was called the afternoon before his best starter took the mound. Clay Buchholz didn’t have a dazzling outing (5⅔ innings pitched, 8 hits, 4 earned runs, 3 walks, and 2 strikeouts), but with the Red Sox bats knocking in the most runs in a game this season Don Orsillo could have started and they would have won. He does Pilates.
The left field wall served as target practice for Red Sox batters. Bill Hall and Adrian Beltre both clouted their first home runs as Red Sox players and Beltre got the silent treatment in the dugout. Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia added to their homer totals and are the class of Red Sox sluggers; the former is tied for second in team homers while the latter is in the lead (and doesn’t let any of his teammates forget it).
I was switching channels faster than a teenager who discovered the PIN for the adult cable channels. Milan Lucic knocked in the go-ahead goal against the Flyers with 2:57 left in regulation. As “Dirty Water” played in the Garden, the Pride of Hyde Park Manny Delcarmen took the mound at Fenway. As Scott Schoeneweis struggled through the final three outs the Celtics outlasted newly-crowned NBA MVP LeBron James for a 104-86 victory.
The only subdued note of the evening was Orsillo announcing that Dave Roberts is undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There are so many cancer survivors associated with the team: Lowell, Larry Lucchino, Jerry Remy, Jon Lester, and Shonda Schilling. Since the disease was diagnosed at an early stage, the prognosis for Roberts is extremely optimistic. There was no more gracious roleplayer on the 2004 squad. Stolen base or not, this is a man to root for.
| Game 26: May 3, 2010 | ||
| Angels 12-15 | 8 | L: Joe Saunders (1-5) |
| 2B: Maicer Izturis (3), Erick Aybar (5), Ryan Budde (1) | ||
 Red Sox12-14 | 17 | W: Clay Buchholz (3-2) H: Manny Delcarmen (2) |
| 2B: Mike Lowell – 3 (4), Victor Martinez (5), Kevin Youkilis (8), J.D. Drew (5), Adrian Beltre (7) HR: Kevin Youkilis (5), Bill Hall (1), Adrian Beltre (1), Dustin Pedroia (7) | ||
