John Lacking
For all the complaints about Daisuke Matsuzaka’s starts, his teammate John Lackey’s performances can be as exasperating. This past offseason’s key free agent acquisition lasted 4⅔ innings with a line of 8 hits, 7 earned runs, 6 walks, and 2 strikeouts. Lackey had so little command of the strike zone that he couldn’t even take advantage of home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg’s favorable strike zone.
Had the Red Sox saved some offensive firepower from the first game Lackey could have secured his 10th win of the season, but Cito Gaston’s relief corps shut down the Boston batters for five innings. The relievers may have been aided by Kellogg’s calls.
Kellogg inspired the ire of many of the visiting hitters. Seven times the Red Sox batters were called out on strikes. As the strike zone seemed to be favoring pitchers, hitters found themselves swinging at questionable pitches, resulting in five swinging strikeouts. Mike Cameron was ejected in the seventh inning for complaining to Kellogg, prompting Terry Francona to confront Kellogg. Seconds after Kellogg motioned that Francona was getting tossed the Red Sox skipper copied the motion, Carlos Zambrano-like, which proved to be one of the few enjoyable moments in the game.
The other came in the bottom half of the seventh. Edwin Encarnacion lined the ball to Daniel Nava’s territory and tried to leg out a double. Nava’s throw to Bill Hall was on the money. Hall made the catch and in the process of whipping his arm around for the swipe tag the infielder caught Encarnacion in the face. The unintentional blow to the opposition must have been rather satisfying for Hall, who got hit in the back in the first half of the inning.
Nava was impressive on both sides of the ball; the outfielder also notched two doubles and drove in two runs. The Blue Jays had an outfield force of their own in Jose Bautista. The Toronto right fielder added to his league-leading homer total with a solo bomb in the eighth. He also hosed David Ortiz in the fourth inning when the slugger tried to stretch a single into a double in the fourth, but admittedly Ortiz was deader than Bob Sheppard on the play.
Too soon?
| Game 87: July 10, 2010 | ||
| Red Sox 50-37 | 5 | L: John Lackey (9-5) |
| 2B: Daniel Nava – 2 (10), David Ortiz (21), J.D. Drew (19) | ||
 Blue Jays44-44 | 9 | W: Shawn Camp (3-1) H: Jason Frasor (6), Marc Rzepczynski (1) S: Kevin Gregg (20) |
| 2B: Fred Lewis – 2 (24), Alex Gonzalez (24), Aaron Hill (12) HR: Alex Gonzalez (17), Adam Lind (12), Jose Bautista (24) | ||
