As heartening as Manny Delcarmen’s “local boy does good” story is, the pitcher that impresses most is Justin Masterson. Not every 23-year old rookie possesses the sang-froid to take the mound with the bases loaded with one out and the tying run in the box in Yankee Stadium. A single swing by a man with multiple MVPs would stoke the dying embers of hope Yankee fans hold for their team’s playoff chances.

Both Yankee and Red Sox adherents may deride Alex Rodriguez for his lack of timely hitting, but that merely deprives Masterson of the praise he richly earns for inducing the two key outs of this game.

That acclaim should also be shared by Tim Wakefield, whose .500 record belies how well he has pitched in 2008. In his numerous quality starts either the batters weren’t providing the requisite runs or his bullpen failed to close down the opposition, robbing him of the victories that would give him a winning season.

Two of the three runs the Yankees managed were bloop homers provided by Johnny Damon. As a Red Sox player his homers silenced the crowd at Stade Fasciste; as a Yankee he can bask in gratuitous curtain calls for four-baggers that bring him and his team no closer to playoff contention.

For every Red Sox batter who started the game except Jacoby Ellsbury and Kevin Cash tallied a run. No one-man shows of supposed Yankee splendor could overcome the concentrated effort of nine men with a shared purpose: to see October baseball in Boston again. If the Red Sox weren’t reaching on hits they were getting bases on balls.

Pettitte uncharacteristically lacked control, though not-so-subtle lobbying by Jose Molina, Joe Girardi, and the lefty himself widened the strike zone as the game wore on. If the Yankees can’t have their PEDs, filibustering home plate umpire Jim Reynolds is the classy Yankee way of putting their thumb on the scale.

Jerry Remy reined in his criticisms of Daisuke Matsuzaka significantly, primarily because the pitcher didn’t unintentionally walk a batter throughout his six innings of work. The formerly moribund, suddenly productive Vernon Wells took a fat yakker to the second deck in left field, one tier below Manny Ramirez territory. The center fielder drove in Toronto’s version of Alex Cora, Marco Scutaro for a quick lead.

A.J. Burnett imitated Matsuzaka in the top of the third, walking Cora and Coco Crisp in succession with one out and then getting a quick out off the bat of Jacoby Ellsbury. Where Burnett failed, however, was escaping from his errant pitches. Dustin Pedroia shot a rocket, fired a laser, blasted a bomb, whatever hyperbole the loudmouth second baseman enjoys employing when he gets a hold of a pitch and sends it to souvenir city.

David Ortiz followed up with a double roped to right that probably earned some of Pedroia’s feigned derision in the dugout. “A double?” the squirt would ask increduously. “Next time you want to really launch one over the fences, come talk to me, I can give you some tips, Papi.”

Kevin Youkilis plated Ortiz with a single to center, which likely increased Pedroia’s amusement. “So, the clean-up guy gets a single? I mean, it is an RBI single, but I got a homer off this guy,” the middle infielder would quip whilst flexing what one would charitably call his biceps.

Matsuzaka got himself into a rhythm that was derailed with a long injury delay in the fourth. The starter whiffed Wells on three pitches and then watched in amazement as Ellsbury retreated to deep right to glove Adam Lind’s drive right before crashing into the chain link fence that hems in the visiting bullpen. Even with the tremendous collision the rookie outfielder held onto the ball.

For about 10 minutes Paul Lessard and Terry Francona hovered around Ellsbury trying to help him with his contact lens. He finally replaced it himself, which is what he should have done in the first place. I never understood letting someone do that; it would be like making someone else brush your teeth for you.

Lyle Overbay took the long timeout to collect himself. When Matsuzaka hurled a cut fastball inside Overbay cleaned it out for his eleventh homer of the season. Matt Stairs sneaked a single into center but got no farther thanks to a ground out by Rod Barajas. The four pitches that the Blue Jays backstop saw in that at bat would help his team out in the sixth.

In the bottom of the sixth Toronto again displayed offensive prowess that only seems possible when the Jays face Boston. Alex Rios led off with a single to Jason Bay and Wells wore out the same part of the field with a ringing double to tally the tying run. Lind provided a productive out that advanced Wells to third, prompting Francona to pay tribute to Stairs with the four-finger salute. Stairs is the type of hitter that can dial back his swing to make contact and get runs across the dish when needed, so giving him a free pass with Barajas in the offing was the right move.

But Barajas learned from his prior at bat and Matsuzaka was flagging at this stage of the game. After taking fastballs that skirted the zone, the rotund catcher cracked a fastball below the knees down the third base line to push across the go-ahead run.

Just as it seemed the Red Sox would fall to two games under .500 against the AL East, Coco Crisp lofted a game-tying homer to right-center field. The motivation must have come from trying to hit the ball hard enough to destroy the garish wall scoreboards that ring the field.

Justin Masterson, Hideki Okajima, and Jonathan Papelbon held the home team scoreless for four innings. Only Masterson allowed a baserunner: who else but the pesky Scutaro singled to reach in the seventh. Papelbon gave up a heart-stopping drive to Rios in the bottom of the tenth that was snatched before hitting the padding in left by a well-timed jump by Bay.

Jed Lowrie isn’t just nailing the coffin shut on the Julio Lugo era but bringing a blow torch and sealing the veteran shortstop’s chances to reclaim his starting job in a lead sarcophagus. The rookie shortstop arced a solo shot to the right of the 375 marker in right-center for what would be the winning run.

Manny Delcarmen notched his second major league save despite allowing a leadoff walk to Wells. The Red Sox departed the Great White North with the series and their dignity intact. Now to continue to improve their record against the AL East against the loathsome and lowly Yankees.

The lackluster Red Sox performance had me switching over to the Little League World Series. As in 2005, another team from Hawai‘i made it to the United States championship game.

The team represents the best Little Leaguers from the Waipi‘o and Waipahū towns of O‘ahu. “Wai” means water in Hawaiian; the first town name means “curved water” and the second means “[where] water gushes forth.” Waipi‘o straddles a meandering gorge and Waipahū is named after an artesian spring.

Pre-contact, native Hawaiians considered Waipahū the capital of O‘ahu. This is not surprising given the importance of potable water. That water made the town the hub of sugar plantations on the island. Today, one can revisit that past in Hawaii’s Plantation Village. On one street there are homes representing Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Okinawan, Portuguese, and Puerto Rican cultures; people from around the globe came to Hawai‘i to find better lives for themselves and their families.

The diversity of the islands can be seen in Hawaiian team’s names and faces. Two standout hitters are Pikai Winchester and Iolana Akau. But it is not their names that are chanted by the families in the stands.

“Paliku! Paliku! Paliku!” The Little League ‘ohana (family, whether blood-related or not) rallied the team with this name in tense moments. Paliku is the name of Pikai’s five-year old brother, who is back in Hawai‘i being treated for lymphoma.

Pikai went 2-for-2 and his team mounted a six-run rally in the sixth and final inning over the team from Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Today at 3:30 the Waipi‘o Little Leaguers play against the Matamoros, Mexico team for the world title. Best of luck to these true amateur athletes.

Photo is public domain.

How the visiting team would muster up the requisite number of runs to support Paul Byrd was uncertain. J.D. Drew was scratched from the lineup because his herniated disk was acting up, Mike Lowell is in the midst of his disabled list stint due to a strained oblique, and Julio Lugo had a setback with a left quadriceps pull a few days ago.

I was just being polite mentioning Lugo. Jed Lowrie has been a superior option both offensively and defensively up the middle. Unlike Lugo, Lowrie can also cover second and third. The rookie demonstrated this flexibility by starting at the hot corner. Lowrie went hitless but scored a run after reaching base on a free pass in the fourth.

I was reminded of Lugo when Blue Jays second baseman Joe Inglett fell victim to two double plays to staunch rallies in the seventh and ninth. Inglett was also picked off for the final out of the third with Vernon Wells in the box. Unlike Boston, Toronto has no Lowries to call up to spell Inglett, but John McDonald is mouldering on the bench. Nor did the Red Sox get trigger-happy contract extensions like the Blue Jays did: McDonald and Alex Rios seemed to have slid into complacency in the aftermath of their multi-year extensions.

With power threats Drew and Lowell absent, other outlets have been tapped. One source has been consistent the season so far: Dustin Pedroia, who had his first hit (a home run, no less) against Shaun Marcum in the first. Another source, Kevin Youkilis, has sustained his consistency in his trademark skill, getting on base, and has added a dimension to his game. Youkilis’s previously unseen store of power has been unleashed, enabling Terry Francona to place the versatile infielder behind David Ortiz in the batting order with confidence.

One player that most fans, including me, had written off was Jason Varitek. The backstop has had a late-season resurgence at the most opportune time; in the last three games Varitek has exceeded his home run production of in June and July combined. Perhaps the road trip was particularly well-timed for Varitek, who recently filed for divorce from his wife Karen.

With the runs on the board, the final piece of the puzzle to be put into place would be the bullpen’s performance. In any major league team, this component is often the most ill-fitting, if it is present at all. Yesterday, however, the relief corps completed the picture with the trio of Justin Masterson, Hideki Okajima, and Jonathan Papelbon closing out the final third of the contest.

Surprisingly, it was Masterson’s first major league hold. He had come into so many games to clean up Clay Buchholz’s mishaps I thought there must have been some point where he met the criteria for a hold.

Some day somebody’s gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye
Until then, baby, are you going to let them hold you down and make you cry?
Don’t you know, don’t you know things can change, things’ll go your way
If you hold on for one more day

I didn’t think there would be a song as lame as the hold statistic. Silly me.

I don’t have a living memory of Billy Rohr but I have seen clips from his auspicious debut on April 14, 1967, a game where the 21-year old carried a no-hitter into the ninth. His brush with baseball history happened in Yankee Stadium, which is probably why Rohr is still remembered. The game log dryly recounts the first out of the second half of the ninth inning as “Flyball: LF,” but the image of Carl Yastrzemski at full sprint to intercept Tom Tresh’s screamer is seared into my mind. In The Impossible Dream Remembered, Ken Coleman recounted the incident eloquently:

His drive to left over the head of Carl Yastrzemski left a rising trail of blue vapor… At the crack of the bat, Yaz broke back, being guided by some uncanny inner radar. Running as hard as a man fleeing an aroused nest of bees, Yaz dove in full stride and reached out with the glove hand in full extension, almost like Michelangelo’s Adam stretching out for the hand of God. At the apex of his dive, Yaz speared the ball, and for one moment of time that would never register on any clock, stood frozen in the air as if he were Liberty keeping the burning flame aloft.

It would be a pity if all that is remembered of Clay Buchholz is his moment of brilliance in a championship year, but I believe his demotion to Double-A Portland is but a temporary setback. If he doesn’t, the teenyboppers will tire of squealing at Jacoby Ellsbury’s every dive back to first.

The adulation of Ellsbury has reached Sizemorian proportions. Now, if only his production matched his Cleveland counterpart’s. The outfielder has seemingly snapped out of his June through July doldrums to retake the leadoff spot and lead the team to victory… but not last night.

Even though Chris Waters pitched with as much uncertainty as Buchholz, the Orioles starter settled down after a couple of innings and was supported by a surprisingly solid outing by the mercurial Dennis Sarfate.

At least Bartolo Colon is primed for big league action. Tonight he went four no-hit innings tonight against the Syracuse Sky Chiefs with a matched pair of walks and strikeouts. He’ll slip right in Buchholz’s spot, perhaps requiring the aid of a shoehorn.

Dennis Eckersley, Jerry Remy, and even Lou Merloni, who is not so far removed from the game, seem to hold Daisuke Matsuzaka up to some unattainable ideal of a pitcher. Anything short of Sidd Finch is deemed unacceptable.

Remy, in particular, has identified Matsuzaka as his object of scorn, replacing his former target, Dustin Pedroia. As Melvin Mora fouled off pitch after pitch in the fourth inning with ducks on the pond and one out, Remy proclaimed with doom, “Hitters are 0-for -2 with the bases loaded against Matsuzaka, but that may change quickly.” Change it did—to 0-for-14.

I didn’t expect him to bring out a pair of pompoms from under the broadcast desk, but Remy seemed to want Matsuzaka to fail at that point of the game. I’m glad Remy isn’t a complete homer like Ken Harrelson or Ron Santo, but the analyst has incessantly harped upon what he sees as Matsuzaka’s shortcomings. And as Remy goes, so do the rest of the NESN talking heads; Heidi Watney even asked Pedroia about what it’s like to play behind someone that walks so many batters.

The fact that Matsuzaka leads his team in wins and has an ERA of 2.77 is brushed aside. Such statistics don’t have a lot of currency in advanced statistical analysis, as well they shouldn’t. Using VORP, amongst Red Sox pitchers Mastsuzaka’s 38.6 is second only to Jon Lester’s 44.7.

(As I write this Remy appeared on the pre-game of tonight’s game and basically said he doesn’t like calling a game when Matsuzaka ptiches. It’s a pity he’s allows his personal feelings to color his judgment. Home plate umpire Bob Davidson told the visitors’ dugout to drink decaf when they were getting chirpy in the top of the eighth. I recommend the same to Remy.)

In an era where on-base percentage, which doesn’t devalue walks, is hailed as a greater indicator of offensive production, it seems pitchers who walk a lot of batters take a corresponding hit in their perceived value.

Boston batters have finally found a way to produce on the road, and facing the volcanic Daniel Cabrera added heat to their fire. Jason Varitek homered for the second game in a row in the second inning. Kevin Youkilis continued to fill the role of clean-up hitter with a longball of his own in the fifth; the two-corner infielder has a line of .328 batting average, .403 on-base percentage, and .625 slugging percentage batting fourth over the course of 64 innings.

It doesn’t bother me so much to see Manny in Dodger blue these days.

Kevin Millar went from Rally Karaoke Guy to “Orioles Magic” conjurer with his Charm City club. Wonderfully cheesy from the establishing shot which shows Jeremy Guthrie puffing on a clarinet when the instrument actually heard is a french horn to the players spelling out their team’s nickname with their arms, it made me wish the Red Sox had a song that was specifically written for them.

We do have “Sweet Caroline,” “Dirty Water,” and “Tessie” but there are flaws with each. The “Sweet Caroline” sing-along is a tradition for other teams, not just the Red Sox, although it is very singable. The Standells’ song is more marks the occasion of a victory and is not easy for a large crowd to sing. The remake of “Tessie” does spectacular job of tying in Red Sox history from the team’s inception to the present day, but again, not a particularly easy song to sing.

“Orioles Magic” is what I fear a Red Sox fight song would sound like. Ideally, the tune would be like an amiable ditty like Steve Goodman’s “Go, Cubs, Go!” or a jaunty jingle such as Al Trace and Walter Jagiello’s “Let’s Go, Go-Go White Sox.”

Not that Jason Bay requires any motivation. The self-effacing left fielder enjoyed his first multi-homer game and drove in four of his team’s runs. Bay also swiped his first bag as a Red Sox player in the sixth. (The second inning was a great inning if your name were “Jason;” Varitek went back-to-back with Bay, the catcher’s first homer since July 21.) I look forward to post-game shows when Bay performs well as I am enamored of Bay’s vocal quirk: before he answers a question he makes a sound that is hybrid of “yeah” and “uh” that for some reason I find utterly charming.

Josh Beckett is experiencing some numbness and tingling in his fingers which will cause him to miss his next start, but that is a minor concern in light of a former Red Sox player’s health issues.

Best wishes to Carl Yastrzemski, who requires heart bypass surgery and is a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Too much of the Texas pitching staff’s tendencies and not enough of the their hitters’ habits rubbed off on the Red Sox. Boston was swept in the rain-shortened two-game series over the weekend, which does not portend well for their upcoming road trip. At least the stopper, Jon Lester, will take the mound in Fenway South tonight.

In times of turmoil, it is at least amusing to turn the attention a few states south and heed Hank Steinbrenner’s latest pronouncement on the state of his team. “We’ve been devastated by injuries. No team I’ve ever seen in baseball has been decimated like this,” he proclaimed. “It would kill any team.”

What a pale imitation of the elder Steinbrenner his progeny is. Hank blusters and blasts his way through the press corps, but all of that puffery is a disguise to hide what he truly is: a mollycoddled milquetoast that shrinks at the slightest sign of adversity.

I saw neither Paul Byrd’s Red Sox debut nor the Olympics live last night because of a day-long power outage in my town. It was odd to be disconnected from information, so I asked my friend to send me text messages with Red Sox and Olympic updates. Unfortunately, the only Red Sox update came from Dustin Pedroia’s solo shot in the ninth, but the previously unimaginable feat of eight gold medals in the Olympics was realized by a thewy kid from Baltimore.

Most Americans take access to the internet, like so many other modern conveniences, for granted. But for the global citizenry in countries less well-off than ours, internet access could be a person’s only access to information. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” National Grid deprived me off my human rights for an entire day; perhaps Michael Tigar will take my case.

But seriously, these Olympics have put into conflict two parts of me, the sports fan and the person with a political conscience.

I love sports because they are stories where the ending is unscripted. The human endeavor for excellence culminates in events where the gap between first and second is one-hundredth of a second. That infinitesimal difference is the coalescence of years of rigorous training and preparation outside of the spotlight. For Olympians whose sports are neglected in the off years, the games are their one time to capture the imagination of their spectators (at least those who have access to television, the internet, and other media).

The backdrop in which these dramas are being played out are a beautifully rendered scroll by the Chinese government; a landscape of tradition melded perfectly with modernization. Just as the image of one girl replaced the face of the true voice of another child in the Opening Ceremony, the pleasing façade of these games hide the People’s Republic China’s poor human rights record.

In China, due process is ignored, ethnic minorities and indigenous people are persecuted, torture is employed, the death penalty is in effect, and the country is complicit with genocidal regimes. It’s as if they followed the American blueprint to modernization to a tee. To take a Biblical bent, Romans 2:1 intones, “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.”

I fear that this global debutante ball is more about increasing the products available on www.amazon.cn rather than enhancing the rights of its people. I am still learning about human and civil rights in China, but I found the website organized by Human Rights in China to be extremely enlightening. From this source I learned about how artist Zhang Hongtu’s work was seized by Chinese officials but then returned for display in the United States for fear of being criticized.

The Rangers’ visit to Fenway was the much-needed tonic for the Boston batters. Texas came into town with wild card aspirations and departed with their pitching staff in shambles and a .500 record. They have the firepower to put up runs, but, much like the Rays, until a reasonable facsimile of a big league pitching staff is assembled in Arlington the team will only be able to bash their way to victory.

When the Red Sox are hitting on all cylinders as they did in the second inning last night, not even the brawn of the Lone Star state’s bats can match them. For the 22nd time this season the Red Sox batted around. David Ortiz was a standout with a two-run blast that reached the occupants of the first row of the right field stands with an alarming quickness.

Two-baggers were sent hither and yon by Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, and Jed Lowrie in the same inning. Lowrie has been a marked upgrade in the infield and yet another testament to the Red Sox front office’s ability to develop major leaguers. Not only has he been a more consistent producer than Julio Lugo at the dish, but he also brings added versatility in being able to play short, second, and third who can switch hit.

Lowrie’s swing, with the natural lift at the end, enables him to stroke doubles from both sides of the plate. From the right he recalls Bill Mueller in his breakout year in 2003 and from the left dare I say I see a glimmer of a young John Olerud, but with less power.

It was a great game, but it’s just a game.

Today is the second day of the Jimmy Fund radio-telethon. Cancer is usually on my mind because my job involves writing about clinical trials and many of them test cures for cancers, but lately it has touched my life personally. My boss’s husband just recently recovered from colorectal cancer but my friend’s cousin was not as fortunate.

I met my friend’s cousin at my friend’s wedding last year. At that point she appeared healthy enough: she was enjoying food, drink, friends, and, most of all, family. Amongst the wedding photos there is a wonderful picture of her cradling her eight-year old daughter. It wasn’t because of a winning smile or an alluring pose that made the image so stunning.

The mother didn’t even notice the camera. She was looking down at her daughter with pure and utter love. And her daughter was looking like kids at weddings do, oblivious to the adult proceedings surrounding her but enjoying the comfort of her mother’s lap.

My friend’s cousin died just days ago because of undiagnosed kidney cancer. For over two years she went to doctors complaining of lower back pain, but no physician caught the problem.

Cures are important, but detection is just as important. My boss’s husband is still alive because his disease was caught in time. My friend’s cousin is dead, won’t see her daughter grow up and have a wedding of her own, won’t be able to give motherly advice if her daughter has own kids, because her cancer went unnoticed.

I donated to the Jimmy Fund because I know the money goes to fight cancer on all fronts, including better methods to diagnose cancer earlier and therefore have a better chance of defeating it.

Speaking of drummers, Luis Mendoza was beat like a drum. Continuing from the first game of the series the Red Sox put up crooked numbers early in the game.

Just as J.D. Drew picked up the slack when David Ortiz was ailing, Kevin Youkilis did a yeoman’s job at the plate covering for the injured Mike Lowell. Youkilis had Josh Hamilton sliding after a double to the right-center gap to commence the second inning.

Jason Bay continued his consistent ways with a line drive single to left to advance Youkilis to third. A sloppy throw to second by “Jeh-red Salterler...er, Salty” allowed the Red Sox third baseman to score and put Bay in position to score on Sean Casey’s ground out to first.

Youkilis returned the disdain Ron Washington showed him in the third by intentionally walking Ortiz with a ground ball past his counterpart that hugged the line and ricocheted off the stands to shallow left. Both Coco Crisp (who reached on a single) and Dustin Pedroia (a double that just being a four-bagger) scored.

Not to be outdone, Bay smacked a two-run double of his own to center. Not only did Hamilton have to deal with the balls that came his way but also with his wife going into labor.

As they are inclined to do, the Rangers binged on the offerings of pitchers and mounted a rally in the eighth. For seven and one-third innings Jon Lester had fended off an onslaught, but Ian Kinsler shattered the shutout with a towering shot to the Monster seats. Mike Timlin showed that barely has mop-up stuff, if that, but Javier Lopez and Justin Masterson were there to close out the game and guarantee the series win.

Last night the Red Sox and Rangers tied the American League record for most runs scored in a game. Back on June 29, 1950, the Red Sox and the Philadelphia Athletics clashed at Shibe Park and combined for 36 runs with the visitors winning 22-14. It was remarkable that the Athletics were able to score that much as at the end of the season the team sported a paltry 52-102 record.

David Ortiz pummeled a pair of three-run homers in the first and the Rangers didn’t help themselves with slipshod defense behind the hapless Scott Feldman. For Ortiz’s second homer, the second base umpire Scott Barry applied a peculiar Fenway Park ground rule somewhat incorrectly. The rule states, “A fly ball striking wall left of line and bounding into bullpen is a home run.” The sphere clearly caromed into the lower bleachers, not the bullpen, but the liberal interpretation of the rule seemed to be appropriate as Ortiz crushed that cookie of a pitch.

The umpiring crew gave a bit of a makeup call to the Rangers in the fifth by ruling that Coco Crisp didn’t catch Gerald Laird’s fly ball to deep center. The replay showed that Crisp squeezed the ball and dropped it in transition, but the officials stood stubbornly by their call. The visitors would go on to score six more runs (with Ian Kinsler contributing a three-run longball of his own) to the two they already had in the frame to bring the score to 12-10.

One man that was vulnerable to Feldman was Kevin Youkilis who, as patient as he is, struck out twice in the first. But it was Youkilis who put his team ahead in the bottom of the eight with a three-run jack to give his team the lead once and for all.

The grueling win came at a cost, however: Mike Lowell strained his oblique muscle and was placed on the 15-day disabled list. The gamer that he is, he continued to play with his hip issue and likely incurred this more serious injury by overcompensating with his torso. David Pauley will take Lowell’s spot on the 25-man roster, perhaps a bit too belatedly considering Clay Buchholz’s ineffectiveness.

I take notes throughout the course of the game; after the jump you can revisit the absurdity of this game. At least with the Red Sox prevailing it will be something that won’t be a misery to recollect.

bottom first: Drew BB
Pedroia dropped a single into center
Ortiz homered, towering
Lowell singled up the middle
Bay off Vazquez’s chest, SS looked up in anticipation of turning the double play and failed to field the ball
Double steal by Lowell and Bay
Lowrie doubled off the top of the scoreboard with a clank
Crisp flied out
Cash BB. Batted around
Drew singled, another run scored, Cash advance
Pedroia singled off Feldman
Papi with a three-run homer, this time to Red Sox bullpen bleachers
Youk K twice in the inning

top second: Andy Karl and Dick Newsome, Flowers and
Sixth Red Sox player to make his debut this season
Parents worked for Folsom State Prison
Bradley BB
Byrd singled to opposite field, past Pedroia
With two out, Davis singled to right, two runs scored
Vazquez singled up the middle

bottom second: with two out, Lowrie doubled to center

top third: Young leadoff single to left
Bradley K

bottom third: Drew through the hole for a single
Pedroia to opposite field, too
Papi to Kinsler, grounder could have been DP but was bobbled, 2 out
Youk BB, Feldman gone
Bay grounder to Vazquez who gloved it but slipped out, another run scored

bottom fourth: Crisp beat out pitcher to first, Davis dropped ball when fielding

top fifth: Kinsler got ahold of a knuckler and caromed it off the left field wall to Crisp for a stand-up double. Kinsler advanced on wild pitch.
Hamilton RBI single past Youk
Bradley grounder that asploded on Lowrie
Byrd doubled to F.W. Webb sign, run scored but Hamilton waited to see if Crisp would catch it
Crisp dropped Laird’s fly ball, he claimed that it was on the transition that it was dropped. On replay it looked like a catch,second base umpire disagreed. Zink left the mound, two outs away from a decision
Lopez in: Davis singled to left for another run, dropped in front of Bay
Vazquez K, Aardsma in
Kinsler three-run jack off Aardsma
Young K

bottom fifth: Ortiz doubled, called fan interference
Youk to the wall of the bleachers; bounced to the Monster seats
Bay B

top sixth: Hamilton, Bradley, and Byrd: another run scored
Aardsma out, MDC in
Catalanotto doubled to plate another run
Sacrifice fly by Laird
Davis’s fly ball deflected off Youk to Pedroia who went home. Pedroia’s throw was high, game tied
Kinsler sac fly for the lead

bottom sixth: Madrigal in
Crisp BB, CS

top seventh: MDC still in
Hamilton leadoff double, plated by Byrd’s single
Okajima in
Ellison PH, flied out
Laird BB
David HBP

bottom seventh: Pedroia singled through the hole
Ortiz BB
Youk grounder to pitcher, relay to Vazquez missed by him, Pedroia score
Bay fielder’s choice

top eighth: Youk leaping grab of Kinsler liner, at the hot corner
Pedroia sliding stop of Young grounder
Hamilton K looking, doesn’t agree

bottom eighth: Frank Francisco in. Will he throw a chair?
Lowell strained right oblique muscle
Ellsbury BB on four pitches
Drew flied out to deep right
Pedroia lofted a double off the wall, Ellsbury burned it from first to score the tying run
Ortiz IBB. Francisco angry IBB throw for first pitch.
Youk three-run shot off Sports Authority sign

top ninth: Byrd reached on error, ball asploded
Boggs PH RBI double
Davis softly lined out to Pedroia

The questionable style tactics seem to have some positive effect last night.

Nick Swisher and Juan Uribe smacked back-to-back singles to begin the third. Swisher advanced on Orlando Cabrera’s fly ball to center and A.J. Pierzynski sacrificed to Coco Crisp to put the first run on the board.

John Danks was throwing smoke and on course for a perfect game until Kevin Youkilis muscled a single into shallow center with one out in the seventh inning. He then walked Mike Lowell on five pitches and briefly regained his prior dominance by striking out Jason Bay.

J.D. Drew, whose 2008 splits against lefties show very little difference from his performance against right-handed hurlers, took a fastball that got too much of the outer edge of the plate to the opposite field for a two-RBI double. As quickly as the perfect game was over so was the Pale Hose’s lead over their crimson counterparts. Scoring came late for the visitors, but this was a key win for Boston as the Yankees continued their descent and the Rays were dealt blows to their lineup.

Jonathan Papelbon was robbed of a save opportunity in the top of the ninth. Jed Lowrie erased the memory of Julio Lugo’s many fruitless at bats with his bases-clearing double to left. Two of the three runners on base scored; Drew was out at home only because of a perfect relay from Carlos Quentin to Cabrera.

Lowrie aggressively tagged up on Jason Varitek’s fly ball to center. Ken Griffey, Jr., surely didn’t appreciate the upstart testing his arm, but blame Ozzie Guillen for allowing the old-timer to attempt to relive his old glory in the most challenging outfield position.

The rookie tag team of Lowrie and Jacoby Ellsbury teamed up for their team’s final run in a manner reminiscent of the best team in the American League, the Angels. Josh Beckett played the role of John Lackey, staff ace and shutdown arm, with an eight inning showing with a line of no walks and eight strikeouts.

This is the way Boston will have to play to supplant the Rays, who were dealt major blows with Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria being placed on the 15-day disabled list on consecutive days. At least the Red Sox are adding players, even though it is Paul Byrd, and not losing them.

At this point it might be better to bring up David Pauley for another go-around or reinsert Justin Masterson back into the rotation. Clay Buchholz simply has not been able to get the job done. Masterson was the most impressive pitcher on the mound yesterday, inclusive of White Sox arms. The lanky sinkerballer struck out five, walked none, and allowed a single to Nick Swisher in his two and two-thirds innings toeing the rubber.

Mike Lowell put his team on the board first with his three-run four-bagger in the first. At the hot corner, however, Lowell proved to be an uncharacteristic liability.

Perhaps he was mesmerized by Juan Uribe’s blond goatee, for both of the Red Sox third baseman’s errors came on balls batted by his counterpart.

In the fourth Lowell played Uribe’s sharp grounder to the side, allowing it to glance off his glove and into left. That misplay didn’t result in a run, but it did the White Sox an extra out and more opportunity to observe Buchholz’s tendencies.

In the bottom of the next inning the White Sox had Paul Konerko at third, Alexei Ramirez at first, and one out. Masterson took the mound in relief of David Aardsma and the infield came in to go over the various iterations of who would cover what given the situation.

Uribe chopped the ball high on the third base side and Lowell jumped to intercept it with his bare hand, knowing that even Konerko could score on such a high ball. As keen as his catch was, his throw to home went awry.

As Boston scraped together two runs in the sixth, that run was the margin of victory. The Rays won their third straight to break their franchise single-season wins record, putting the Red Sox four and half games behind the improbable leaders of the AL East.