Afternoon Boon
Mariners manager Daren Brown decided to give third baseman Matt Tuiasosopo a break for the day game, thus giving Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy a brief reprieve from saying that name. I listened to part of the WEEI broadcast from the series opener to check that at least one Red Sox broadcasting team could say the name right, and to my delight Joe Castiglione and Dave O’Brien were spot on in their pronunciation.
Hitters must be like musicians, not getting into the groove of things until late in the day. Josh Beckett and David Pauley exchanged zeroes until the middle of the sixth; the Red Sox had only three baserunners over those frames and the Mariners just two.
Adrian Beltre broke the scoreless tie and nearly shattered David Pauley’s ankle in the process. With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the sixth, Beltre’s comebacker ricocheted off the former Red Sox starter and arced above the infield before dropping along the third base line. The trajectory was high enough to plate Marco Scutaro. Mike Lowell followed with a sacrifice fly to right and Daniel Nava doubled his team’s score by muscling a two-RBI single to shallow right.
Each one of those runs were of tremendous significance as Beckett surrendered a pair of home runs: a solo shot to Russell Branyan and a two-run four-bagger to Casey Kotchman. In 87 at bats with the Red Sox Kotchman hit exactly one homer on August 6, 2009. It was against the Yankees, but it was also part of a 13-6 losing effort.
Mike Lowell’s legs have officially degenerated to Molina-levels of functionality. He turns doubles to Fenway’s left field corner into singles and gets hosed at the hot corner when trying to get to first to third on a single by his teammate. Darnell “1-800-54-GIANT” McDonald didn’t mind; he was still credit with an RBI. If there can only be one good thing to come out of this injury-plagued season, let it be that McDonald has finally gotten enough exposure to garner a steady MLB job.
| Game 127: August 25, 2010 | ||
| Mariners 49-77 | 3 | L: David Pauley (2-5) |
| HR: Russell Branyan (20), Casey Kotchman (9) | ||
 Red Sox73-54 | 5 | W: Josh Beckett (4-3) H: Daniel Bard (28) S: Jonathan Papelbon (32) |
| 2B: Marco Scutaro (32) | ||
