Back to Beckett
“Humanity is a well with two buckets,” said Wylie, “one going down to be filled, the other coming up to be emptied.” Murphy by Samuel BeckettJosh Beckett continued his rehabilitation with a game against the Triple-AAA Seattle Mariners, lasting 5⅔ innings with a line of 5 hits, 1 earned run, 3 walks, and 5 strikeouts. The home team got to him early with a leadoff hit by Ichiro Suzuki, a steal of second, and a run scored on Jose Lopez’s ground-rule double to left. The Red Sox defense greatly improved on its shaky performance in the opening game of the series and didn’t allow their opposition any extra outs.
The same could not be said for the local nine. Former Mariner Mike Cameron crashed a double to the base of the wall to lead off the fifth and advanced to third on Michael Saunders’s throw. The left fielder missed the cutoff man and Chone Figgins didn’t move a muscle as the ball bounced through the infield. Figgins seemed lost in thought, perhaps contemplating the nature of human consciousness in light of Beckett’s (Samuel, not Josh) anti-narratives.
Even though the Red Sox didn’t capitalize on the blunder, Mariners skipper Don Wakamatsu confronted Figgins about the player’s lack of hustle and disregard of the realist agenda. A kerfuffle in the dugout followed and Figgins was pulled in favor of Josh Wilson (who, like Wakamatsu, is a great admirer of Henry James), littering the field with mediocre infielders with that surname.
The poor man’s Figgins Bill Hall (or is Figgins a poor man’s Hall, given their comparative production this season) gave his team the lead in the seventh with a no-doubter to the second deck.
The slim lead was maintained by a trio of relievers. Scott Atchison took over from Beckett in the sixth, got the final out of that inning, and held the opposition scoreless for 1⅓ innings. Atchison was the last player to make the team out of spring training and seems to have at last confidently assumed the role of spot starter/long reliever. Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon pitched the final pair of innings, the former perfectly with two strikeouts and the latter with some amount of drama. But at least the team did not come up empty against a largely punchless lineup.
| Game 97: July 23, 2010 | ||
 Red Sox55-42 | 2 | W: Scott Atchison (2-1) H: Daniel Bard (21) S: Jonathan Papelbon (22) |
| 2B: Adrian Beltre (28), Mike Cameron (11), Kevin Youkilis (24) HR: Bill Hall (10) | ||
| Mariners 37-60 | 1 | L: Jason Vargas (6-5) |
| 2B: Jose Lopez (21), Michael Saunders (7), Josh Wilson (9), Jack Wilson (10) | ||
