Baseball Bloopers
Jerry Remy covered play-by-play for Don Orsillo, who was out due to illness, for the first few batters until John Rish took over. Remy was as uncomfortable narrating the action as Daniel Bard was pitching in the ninth.
Perhaps it was the recent spate of over-usage that caused the fireballer to blow the save and not some sort of mental inability to close out a game. Jonathan Papelbon will put himself on the free agent market once he is no longer arbitration eligible and Bard is currently the most likely candidate to replace him. Bard notched his third career save on June 8 but gave up two hits and two walks in the final game in this series against Cleveland for a disheartening defeat.
The Indians led off the ninth with a base on balls for Trevor Crowe. Shin-Soo Choo’s double wasn’t deep enough to plate Crowe, but the speedy center fielder got within 90 feet of tying the game. Bard walked Austin Kearns on five pitches to load the bases, but recovered to strike out Travis Hafner and induce a pop out off the bat of Jhonny Peralta.
Rather than improving his curriculum vitae with another save Bard added his fourth blown save of the season. Russell Branyan’s blooper to shallow left wasn’t well hit but Crowe and Choo were off on contact with two outs.
No one is more thankful for his team’s late inning comeback than Andy Marte. The formerly touted prospect committed three of Cleveland’s four errors, all of them coming in the first inning. His bobble of Kevin Youkilis’s grounder led to bases loaded with none out. David Ortiz and Youkilis would come around to score on Marte’s second and third errors: booting Mike Cameron’s grounder and then flinging the ball far out of the reach of Shelley Duncan.
Marte could have been at the hot corner for the Red Sox, but then the team traded him in a package for Coco Crisp, Josh Bard, and David Riske. The Red Sox wouldn’t have that memorable brawl against the Rays or Beltre talking about snakes in Fenway’s infield and hitting go-ahead homers in the ninth without the trade.
| Game 62: June 10, 2010 | ||
| Red Sox 35-27 | 7 | BS, L: Daniel Bard (4, 1-2) |
| 2B: Marco Scutaro (15), Victor Martinez (17), J.D. Drew (15) HR: Adrian Beltre (8) | ||
 Indians23-36 | 8 | H: Frank Herrmann (2), Chris Perez (6) BS, W: Kerry Wood (2, 1-2) |
| 2B: Trevor Crowe (3), Jason Donald (5), Shin-Soo Choo (12) | ||
