How hard is it to not yell when at work listening to the outcome of the rubber game? I found out this past Wednesday. I thought I had to go to a couple of meetings that afternoon, but after lunch Outlook cancellation notices came quick and fast. Coincidence?

The ninth inning comeback started with Dustin Pedroia’s five-pitch base on balls proffered by Jim Johnson. Since being dropped down to the two-hole the second baseman has returned to All-Star form, hopefully in time for voters to send him to the Midsummer Classic for the second year in a row.

By the numbers, Ian Kinsler and Aaron Hill are more deserving, but who will talk smack to senior circuit opposition if those milquetoasts go to St. Louis instead of Pedroia? Pedroia is so good he got credited for a tag of Felix Pie even though the ball was in his bare hand. Is that what they mean by slick fielding?

Kevin Youkilis homered after Pedroia’s free pass to cut his team’s deficit to two runs. Youkilis was in a back-and-forth battle with Mark Teixeira to make the All-Star team’s roster, but let the record show that Youkilis has produced irrespective of his spot in the lineup while Teixeira needed Alex Rodriguez’s protection to jump start his season.

In relief of Johnson, George Sherrill mowed down Jason Bay (who garnered a platinum sombrero but was perhaps distracted by studying for his citizenship exam) and David Ortiz with laughable ease. If two of Boston’s best sluggers were sent to the dugout on just four pitches a piece, what chance did lower half of the lineup have?

A pretty good one, it turned out. Jacoby Ellsbury looped a single into center field and Jeff Bailey (recalled in the wake of Mike Lowell’s trip to the disabled list) and Jason Varitek both worked walks to load the bases. Varitek may have swung at ball four, but first plate umpire Mike Winters ruled the move a check swing.

Terry Francona swapped out Nick Green for Rocco Baldelli and had Julio Lugo pinch run for Varitek. Both moves led to the Red Sox come-from-behind extra innings win.

I think that Baldelli’s and Lugo’s bench player status helped then in key game situations. Without a large number of at bats, opponents don’t have the data to optimize their defensive alignments or plan their pitching strategy. Baldelli snuck a single by the glove of Robert Andino for two runs to tie the game in the ninth. Lugo drove in Ellsbury in the eleventh with a grounder through the hole for what would be the winning run.

The bullpen absolved itself of its abominable performance in the middle game of the series with four innings of perfection. Jonathan Papelbon notched his 133rd career save and established a new club record. The pitcher who may eventually supplant him, Daniel Bard, had the defining outing of his career thus far: with the score knotted at 5-5 the fireballer kept the Orioles off the bases for two innings.

The score was 9-1 going into the rain delay and many of the Boston commentators bemoaned the fact that John Smoltz wasn’t going to get credited for his first win as a member of the Red Sox. A Red Sox win was fait accompli to everyone but the Orioles.

With just two out in the sixth Justin Masterson jogged back to his dugout and all the defenders followed him. It was this absentmindedness bordering on smugness that waylaid the visiting team from the task at hand. Echoes of this complacency played out at home plate in the top half of the eighth. George Kottaras limply slid into the dish, neither trying to knock the ball out of his counterpart’s mitt nor striving to position his body or hands away from the tag.

These Red Sox plays stood in stark contrast to Adam Jones sacrificing his body on the center field wall in a desperate attempt to rob Kevin Youkilis of another home run. Although Jones failed and the Red Sox bolted to a 2-0 lead, the local nine rebounded in the seventh and eighth innings.

Oddly enough, most of the remaining fans who witnessed the Orioles’ biggest comeback in franchise history were there for the visiting team. Baltimore overcame a nine-run deficit, one run more than their previous record that came against none other than the Red Sox. The game was played on September 2, 1956 in Fenway and the final score was also 11-10.

The Orioles starting right fielder 53 years ago? Tito Francona. He went 0-for-6 but reached on an error and scored a run.

Add another entry in the Ecktionary: “tired cheese” is a synonym for salad. Example: “Rich Hill had nothing but tired cheese, enabling Jacoby Ellsbury to hit a David Ortiz-like baboomba to lead off the fourth.”

Jason Bay chased down Matt Wieters’s slicing fly ball to left, legs akimbo as he barrel-rolled across the turf. He had to run shallow enough so that Kevin Youkilis and Nick Green had a close-up view of the snowcone snare. I hope Bay feeds the ball to his dog.

In a recent interview Jonathan Papelbon stated that pitching in pinstripes was a possibility. Understandably Papelbon’s comments got some fans up in arms. There is a sliding scale of things people are permitted to place unquestioned faith in without ridicule:

• Age 4: Santa Claus
• Age 55: Sports Heroes
• No limit: God

Dennis Eckersley demonstrated that his Eckisms might be other people’s isms. He co-opted Dave Trembley’s “finger in the socket” trope and tried it out so much that I felt like actually doing it myself. The Hall of Famer is a Beatles fan; wonder if he’s looking forward to Beatles Rock Band as much as I am.

Wieters, the Orioles’ superstar in the making, chased down Mark Kotsay’s pop foul to the rail of the Red Sox dugout in the second inning. The catcher had the ball in his mitt but dropped it as he tipped over the railing; Brad Mills and Jason Varitek saved him from a fall. A tip to the new kid: don’t emulate someone like Doug Mirabelli now that you are in the bigs. Holding onto your mask while you fail to make a stretch catch isn’t All-Star caliber technique. Kotsay singled through the hole on the very next pitch.

Adam Jones, another up and comer, emphatically demonstrated how to use the glove near the wall in the fourth. The center fielder tracked a fly ball all the way to wall, flawlessly timed his leap, and suddenly Youkilis’s one way trip to Souvenir City was diverted.

J.D. Drew fell a double short of the cycle. Drew’s excitement level is inversely proportional to Papelbon’s. The right fielder talked about the game as if he were talking about an oil change.

Jon Lester awkwardly swung at... oh right, we’re finished with designated hitter-less baseball. Lester stymied the Orioles for seven innings, striking out eight and walking none. The local nine were only able to hit singles against all of the Red Sox pitchers.

I seem to say this about every team, but the Orioles have the makings of a contender. Luke Scott, Nick Markakis, Nolan Reimold, and Jones form a promising outfield, Wieters is the youthful infield anchor, and Brian Roberts provides the veteran leadership. The Orioles, like the Red Sox, have a number of arms ready to crack the rotation: Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, and Jake Arrieta.

The American League East will be an interesting place for the next few years.

Tommy Hanson took a page out of Brad Penny’s book and pitched impressively despite flu-like symptoms. If Hanson maintains this pace he could be named the Rookie of the Year. That Boston lost to an outstanding first-year player and not just AAAA cannon fodder removes some of the sting of this loss. He may have been sick, but so was his stuff.

Clay Buchholz’s voodoo doll seemed to work at first. Brad Penny clutched his wrist after a pitch, prompting Paul Lessard and Terry Francona to rush to his side. But Buchholz’s hopes were dashed as Penny once again showed unexpected toughness to last six innings and pitch well enough to win.

Unlike pure American League pitchers, the stout starter knew his way around the batter’s box enough to make contact. He hit the ball on the screws right at Chipper Jones in the third and in the fifth reached on Jones’s error.

Jones had already made his mark on the game in the first inning with a two-out solo shot. Garrett Anderson led off the fourth with a four-bagger that proved the difference in the game.

I’m being a homer, but I wouldn’t pick either home run as the play of the game. Instead, Penny’s put out of Kelly Johnson in the fifth makes my highlight reel. He stood still and let Johnson’s ground ball ricochet off his foot, and then he caught the self-created carom and threw to first for the first out of the inning.

The last game of interleague means not having to watch David Ortiz stumble around batted balls. The ersatz first baseman reached Gregor Blanco’s third-inning bunt attempt well enough but dropped the ball when he tried to swipe tag the runner. In the fourth, Ortiz couldn’t pick Nick Green’s relay in the dirt and at first the shortstop was given an error. The official scorer eventually converted the error into a hit for Jeff Francoeur, perhaps to make him feel better after getting nailed in the helmet by Penny in the second.

Lessard not only fixes players’ ills but equipment, too. He tinkered with Ortiz’s glove, which was about as effective as Dave Magadan helping pitchers with their swings. Farewell to National League shenanigans, at least until the Midsummer and Fall Classics.

To top it off, the Yankees traded Javier Vazquez to Arizona for Randy Johnson and then flipped Johnson back to the Diamondbacks in 2007 for Steven Jackson, Alberto Gonzalez, Ross Ohlendorf, and Luis Vizcaino. Last year Jackson and Ohlendorf were packaged for the Xavier Nady deadline deal, which was a coup for the club at the time. A few days later the Red Sox would end up with the best Pirates outfielder (apologies to the followers of Nate McLouth who worship at his shrine).

Neither Jason Bay or McLouth were in the lineup yesterday. Bay was given the day off while McLouth is day-to-day with a hamstring strain. It’s late June and Terry Francona is already planning for the postseason by resting key players here and there.

Mark Kotsay played in left in place of Bay and was the key offensive contributer for the visitors. With two out Vazquez relinquished two walks to Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz. Ortiz’s base on balls was particularly deflating as Vazquez was ahead 0-2 in the count.

Vazquez worked Kotsay with pitches away until the count was 1-2 and then tried to get the outfielder to bite on a slider a shade too far inside. With the count even Vazquez resorted to the outer edge again. Kotsay anticipated this and carved an RBI line drive single to left for the only run of the game.

How fortunate are the Red Sox to have a player of Kotsay’s caliber on the bench? His at bat was the stamp on Tim Wakefield’s invitation to this year’s All-Star Game.

Yesterday also saw Wakefield tie Roger Clemens’s franchise record of 382 starts. The knuckleballer has won 174 games for the Red Sox and is 18 games away from Clemens’s and Cy Young’s shared record of 192 wins for the Boston AL club. I’d like to think that Wakefield will have the chance to match or surpass that achievement, but with Clay Buchholz champing at the bit and Michael Bowden on the cusp of contributing at the major league level, the 2010 Red Sox rotation might not even include Wakefield.

If that ever happens, it will be a sad day, not just for the Red Sox but for baseball. The game’s addiction to bigger, faster, stronger led to the Steroid Era. Perhaps the sport has emerged from this shameful period, but perhaps too late for those of Wakefield’s ilk. His pitch seems doomed to decline to the status of quaint antiquity.

Josh Beckett didn’t just slap down the Braves (to the tune of 7 innings, 6 hits, no runs, no walks, and 6 strikeouts) but also Heidi Watney in the post-game interview.

Watney asked a question to which Beckett replied, “You missed that question already, Heidi.” Is Jason Varitek still dating Watney? If so, Beckett better hope his catcher doesn’t cross him up the next time they share the field.

Sorry, NESN, but putting a microphone on Nick Green is like following a certified public accountant on the job. Let Green’s bat and glove do the talking. In the seventh the shortstop chased down Diory Hernandez’s grounder and hurriedly set himself to relay to Mark Kotsay’s outstretched glove. Green worked the walk to lead off the next inning, moved to second on Julio Lugo’s sacrifice bunt, and then scored on newly-shorn Dustin Pedroia’s gutshot single. While Green didn’t notch a hit or RBI, his consistent play in the hole kept the Braves at bay no matter how often their fans invoked their montonous war cry.

Credit is due to the Braves fans, however, as they at least had critical mass to attempt to over the chants of the traveling Red Sox contingent. The stereotyped and derivative tomahawk chop isn’t terribly intimidating, however.

Jair Jurrjens is from the same town in the Netherlands Antilles as Andruw Jones and is the first pitcher from Curaçao to pitch in the majors. The former Detroit prospect came over to the Braves with Gorkys Hernandez for Edgar Renteria in October 2007. Given Dontrelle Willis’s struggles, the Tigers likely regret trading away Jurrjens, who may have ace or number two potential.

The Braves pitcher held the opposition scoreless until the fifth when the reinvigorated David Ortiz sent the ball sailing over the fences. Pedroia led off the next inning that he chopped off home plate, dropped between Chipper Jones and the shortstop Hernandez, and stopped at second with a double. The second baseman’s antics at the keystone sack perturbed Jurrjens, inducing a balk. J.D. Drew plated Pedroia with a ground out to second for an insurance run.

Bobby Cox demonstrated remarkable faith in Jurrjens, allowing him pitch the eighth despite a leadoff base on balls. Again Jurrjens balked with Pedroia on second but this time the former MVP scored on a passed ball with Kevin Youkilis at bat. Folly was not limited to Atlanta’s side: Youkilis tried to advance to second while the infield responded to Pedroia's dash and was run down.

We thought Hideki Okajima’s head movement was unnerving, but Mike Gonzalez’s gyrations are in a class by themselves. Jacoby Ellsbury had a pitch sail 10 feet behind and then was rocked into swinging under a hanging slider for a strikeout. Mike Gonzalez turned down the appropriate and striking nickname “The Cobra” in favor of “Gonzo.”

Just like a Brave to go for the mundane.

The success or failure of Heidi Watney’s “Opposite Field” segment all hinges upon the interviewee. Last night Julian Tavarez answered a few questions and I realized how much I miss his personality. He also said he loves and misses us, that he was rooting for Boston during the playoffs last year, and even hopes the Red Sox go all the way this year.

While Tavarez didn’t say so explicitly, there is a chasm of difference between playing for the floundering Nationals franchise and the continually contending Red Sox club. The reborn team can only hope that the similarly-surnamed young stars, Ryan and Jordan, are still around by the time the premium prospects they draft now can contribute at the major league level within the next few years.

Provided they sign the talent they draft. The Nationals failed to sign their first pick of the 2008 draft, Aaron Crow. That was under Jim Bowden’s regime, however, so perhaps negotiations to secure Stephen Strasburg, the first pick of the 2009 draft, will go smoother under new management. As for the player’s agent, well, we all know how reasonable Scott Boras can be.

With some luck, the 2012 Nationals could be the 2008 Rays, but I think they just don’t have the critical mass of young talent on the cusp to suddenly blossom as Tampa Bay did. It took the AL East upstarts 11 years to right the ship; the Nationals might be on the same course to success.

Who had June 25 down for the Nick Johnson injury pool? Perhaps John Smoltz, who nailed the injury-prone first baseman in the shin. Dave Roberts provided his first Dave-ism in response to this incident, mentioning that Johnson’s rapidly-swelling contusion was called a “shinburger” in the business. Would you like your shinburger with or without cheese? I’ll take it with cheese, but no hair, please.

Smoltz vacillated between terrible and terrific in his Red Sox debut: 5 innings pitched, 5 runs (all earned), 1 walk, and 5 strikeouts. I predict he’ll fall smack dab between Curt Schilling and Bartolo Colon on the veteran pitcher reclamation scale.

In an effort to increase local ticket sales, the Nationals had Player Recipe last night. Anderson Hernandez neglected to mention that he was sharing his recipe for Nick Green Kebabs.

Hernandez artfully demonstrated his skewering technique in the second but was thwarted by Green’s agility. Somehow the Red Sox shortstop avoided the bat shard targeting his tender midsection and it glanced off his sinewy arm instead.

Although he singled, Hernandez was perturbed by the failure of his showy entrée. “The ball was a decoy, it wasn’t supposed to get to the outfield. My swing is calibrated to shatter the bat, impale the shortstop, and place the ball such that it goes into the player’s mouth when he collapses.”

Instead of the kebabs, Craig Stammen served his world-renown meatball in the fourth to David Ortiz. Ortiz responded in kind with three rib eyes.

Jon Lester didn’t bring his finest cheese but didn’t resort to serving salad, either. He pitched six innings and matched the number of innings with the hits he surrendered and the strikeouts he doled out. Lester walked only two batters and allowed three earned runs.

Jacoby Ellsbury provided dessert with a snowcone catch of Ryan Zimmerman’s fly ball to center. (It didn’t peek out of Ellsbury’s glove until he hit the center field wall, but I’ve got a theme going here.)

Apologies to Dusty Brown for not mentioning his major league debut in the first game of this series. He got sent down today to make room for John Smoltz, but Brown did enjoy his first cup of coffee.

Even cozy Fenway has a camera bay far below the announcers’ booth. When you can’t distinguish Dustin Pedroia from Adam Dunn you know your camera is too far from the field.

This franchise missed out on a tremendous opportunity to pay homage to the renowned Negro League teams that called the district their home. Washington D.C. had Black Senators (long before there were actual African American senators in the post-Reconstruction Congress), Elite Giants, Pilots, Potomacs, and, most importantly, the Homestead Grays.

I guess marketing “gray” is difficult for your modern advertising executive.

There are three statues honoring significant players: Walter Johnson of the original Senators, Frank Howard of the expansion Senators, and Josh Gibson of the Grays. It’s a shame that the legacy of the Grays is frozen in stagnant statuary rather than vibrant on the front of players’ jerseys day in and day out.

Goodness knows that “gray” is easier to spell than “national,” which would be a relief to the team's equipment manager: no more misspelled jerseys.

In other fashion news, Nick Green, still reveling in his walk-off win, was shown wearing a Yawkey Way Rescue Squad tee shirt during an interview with Heidi Watney. The design was created by Mark Kotsay for the relievers and bench players. It might be the most prescient player-made shirt since Adalius Thomas’s “Humble Pie” line.

Green finds himself in the middle of all the action. In the third Christian Guzman squibbed the ball up the middle. The Red Sox shortstop grabbed it, reached back to tag Guzman, flipped over his counterpart, and then hurled to Kevin Youkilis for the inning-ending twin killing.

Save for Pedroia (3-for-6, 2 runs), Jason Bay (4-for-6, home run), and Jacoby Ellsbury (4-for-4, 2 triples, stolen base), everyone was a little off their game tonight. Kathryn Tappen called Ted Williams “Tom” in her lead-in to a segment on the former Senators franchise. Watney, commenting about Green not knowing his home run won the game, snidely stated, “Well, at least you didn’t lose track of the score like Milton Bradley.”

First: Bradley lost track of the number of outs, not the score. Second: he was on the field, playing defense.

Who let the blondes out?

A power outage at Nationals Park prevented Don Orsillo and Dave Roberts from doing their preview of the game. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised at the logistical shortcomings at Nationals Park; this is the crew that couldn’t deploy the tarp during a rain delay.

Roberts predicted that Josh Bard and Willie Harris were primed for vengeance against their former squad. I tensely watched their at bats transpire, and then I realized that it was Josh Bard and Willie Harris. To their credit, Harris tied up the game in the sixth by doubling in Bard, rendering the score 3-3.

The Red Sox were close to walking the same path of ignominy as the Yankees before them. Then Julian Tavarez remembered his roots and allowed Jason Varitek a sacrifice fly for the lead in the seventh.

The overriding cause of the Nationals’ atrocious record is their leaky bullpen. Where the Yankees failed to score against the likes of Tavarez and Ron Villone, the Red Sox pummeled Nationals relievers for six runs in the eighth. Teddy Roosevelt, pitching from the stretch on a unicycle, had a better chance of shutting down Boston’s formidable lineup.

Nationals Park had a record number of attendees, and the intensity and frequency of Red Sox chants made it clear why the record was broken. It’s just the nation warming up for its trip to Baltimore.

Luckily for the home team the wind didn’t push Brian McCann’s first-inning double over the right field wall. It curled along the curve in the wall long enough to plate to two runs.

Dustin Pedroia figured out another way to get a hit in these conditions: he powered a liner to left for a leadoff double. Jair Jurrjens inelegantly attempted to field Kevin Youkilis’s squibber and instead of the ball came up with runners at the corners with one out.

Jason Bay’s fly ball to right could have been a homer but blew back onto the field for a sacrifice fly. David Ortiz followed up with a blast to left-center that defiantly sailed against currents into the Monster seats.

Ortiz singled to start the home half of fourth but it could have just as easily been called an error on either Yunel Escobar or Chipper Jones. Ortiz scored on a bases-loaded sac fly off the bat of George Kottaras. Kottaras might not be a stud who hits bombs, but he didn’t ground into a double play or pop out uselessly to an infielder.

Without stroking an extra base hit the Braves tied the game in the seventh. With a quartet of bloops and bleeders the score knotted at 4-4. Youkilis stopped the bleeding with diving snare of the hardest hit ball of the inning. Escobar’s bounding liner was nearly past Youkilis but the infielder made the catch and beat Gregor Blanco to the hot corner.

“Did his parents drop the “Y”?” asked Dennis Eckersley.

Kottaras doubled off the wall to lead off the bottom of the seventh. Pedroia failed to move the runner over and his batting helmet took the brunt of his frustration. J.D. Drew seemed to get the benefit of a strike called a ball by home plate umpire Bill Hohn and carved the next pitch over Anderson’s head. Eric O’Flaherty, Chipper Jones, and Bobby Cox were ejected in the aftermath. That was the hottest I had seen Jones; he was probably happy to leave the field given the weather and the taunts that he surely received for the fourth-inning foul-up.

Eckersley mentioned that Cox gets thrown out just to stay in shape, and was he ever right. Cox is the all-time leader in ejections with 143.

Against Hideki Okajima the Braves re-tied the game in the eighth. Kelly Johnson doubled off the wall much as Kottaras did and was then driven in by Anderson. It’s easy to underestimate the veteran left fielder but he still gets a timely hit here and there.

Jonathan Papelbon struggled in the top of the ninth, giving up two walks and a single to load the bases with two outs. Matt Diaz struck out swinging at a nose-high pitch.

With the eight and nine-hole hitters coming up I thought the Red Sox had a two-out comeback in the ninth brewing. Nick Green thought otherwise.

Green has always had to think otherwise. Labeled a part-time utility guy, the infielder kicked around five teams before finding a home with Boston because of injuries to Jed Lowrie and Julio Lugo. If he improved his defense, he could distinguish himself from the Alex Cora utility infielder model with his power.

On Sunday, a blast of wind and Pesky’s Pole came to the aid of a shortstop. Instead of the Mother’s Day Miracle from two years ago NESN can now play the Father’s Day Frenzy when they lack programming thanks to Green’s unlikely walk-off home run.

If I’m Terry Francona, I’m starting Green against his all of his former teams.

If I were Josh Beckett, witnessing the adulation heaped upon Derek Lowe would annoy me. I might be so piqued as to retaliate with my first complete game shutout since April 10, 2005 and do so with just 94 pitches. The Braves lineup mustered a mere five singles and didn’t work a single base on balls.

I was mildly surprised that Beckett only had three complete game shutouts in his career; his fragile former teammate A.J. Burnett has nine and 2002 rookie classmate Aaron Harang has six. In the three years since Beckett arrived in Boston he has transformed from blister-prone question mark to rock-solid stopper.

Beckett didn’t fend off the Braves single-handedly. Jacoby Ellsbury came up with a spectacular sliding catch of Jeff Francoeur’s slicing hit to the warning track in left-center in the third inning. Much as Jason Bay skimmed to a stop to the wall of the left field stands in Friday’s game, Ellsbury glided right up to the San Francisco sign on the scoreboard. Replays showed it was an actual catch, unlike Nate McLouth’s questionable snare of Bay’s second inning fly ball to left-center.

Boston’s offense snapped out of its two-game slump during which it notched three hits and three runs. In fact, eight and nine-hole hitters Jason Varitek and Nick Green combined to outhit the entire team’s production in Saturday night’s game. Varitek went 2-for-3 and in a post-game interview claimed that knowing Lowe didn’t help him do well against his former teammate.

Little do the media know that Varitek programs all his pitchers, much as the CIA programmed its assassins. If Dennis Eckersley made an effort to read Varitek’s lips he would have seen the Red Sox catcher say “improper work relationship” to Lowe in the fifth inning, after which point the Braves pitcher lost the lead.

Listening to Eckersley is like being transported back to a world of shag carpet, psychedelically-painted vans, and lava lamps. As a Letters to Cleo song accompanied images of slightly damp fans for the Dunkin’ Donuts musical montage, the Hall of Famer asked, “Did I miss anything?” Hallucinogenic persisting perception disorder episodes happen; Eckersley should check in with Bill Lee to figure out how to deal with them.

The two characters in Kenshin Kawakami’s family name [川上] mean “stream” and “upper,” respectively, so his family lived upstream at some point. The two kanji in his given name [憲伸] symbolize “rule” or “constitution” and “develop” or “progress,” but instead of being a lawyer Kawakami became a professional baseball player. Kawakami played 11 years for the Chunichi Dragons before coming over to the major leagues to be the first Japanese player to don a Braves uniform.

Bobby Cox got less boos than Daisuke Matsuzaka when he came out to argue Jason Bay’s second inning double. In the fifth inning Casey Kotchman smacked a ball that followed a similar trajectory towards the left field chalk. Bay intercepted the sphere with a sliding catch that had him stopping just short of the wall of the left field stands. The left fielder was the only Red Sox hitter to get any hits let alone drive in runs; his two-run shot in the sixth made a fine souvenir for a fan in the Monster seats. He also had a base on balls and a fly ball to right that just missed the bullpens.

There were only three other Boston players to reach base: J.D. Drew and Jacoby Ellsbury drew walks. Matsuzaka wasn’t the only Red Sox player worthy of derision last night.

Of course the day after I write about Kevin Youkilis’s slump he snapped out of it in grand style. The first baseman homered over the left field wall for the first run of the game in the bottom frame of the first inning.

Jon Lester was no mystery to the Marlins, however. The lefty yielded eight hits over the course of the evening, including a home run apiece by Dan Uggla and Ronny Paulino in the second for the win.

Remarkably, Ricky Nolasco of the juvenile name and the 7.15 ERA surrendered a single hit in his outing while striking out five. I thought for sure this game would complete the sweep of Florida, but the weather had other plans.

Don Orsillo and Dennis Eckersley added to their repertoire of in jokes. In addition to the guys in their ears we had three players going bridge, and keeping one’s moss intact. I miss baboombas, though, and definitely missed baboombas by the local nine.

Had we but world enough, and time
This weakness, Red Sox, were no crime
We would sit down and avoid the rain
On flinty seats and ignore the pain
Thou by the left field grandstand’s side
Shouldst foul balls find: I by the tide
Of Muddy would complain.

(Inspired by Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”)

Putting a dampener on the merriment was official scorer Charles Scoggins’s ruling that Jacoby Ellsbury erred on Jorge Cantu’s fly ball to left-center. Most other center fielders don’t have the wheels to get to the ball to have the chance to miss the catch, and for that reason Ellsbury’s streak of 232 games and 554 chances ended in the first inning. I’ve written about Scoggins before and I respect his acumen, but I think in this particular situation he is wrong. The Red Sox asked him to review the play and he didn’t change his mind. Fortunately it is not within Scoggins’s purview to take away Ellsbury’s seventh-inning home run.

Joining Scoggins in a spate of poor judgment was home plate umpire Jerry Crawford. Dennis Eckersley noted that Crawford was missing the low strike and called the outside corner inconsistently.

Despite the moving strike zone, Brad Penny battled through five innings with a line of 3 hits, 1 unearned run, 4 walks, and 3 strikeouts. He got more than enough support from the offense and the bullpen.

David Ortiz doubled, drew two walks, and scored all three times he was on base. His pal Mini-Me broke out of his slump; the Red Sox second baseman went 3-for-5, drove in three runs, and pulled his batting average back up above .300. Rocco Baldelli is a force off the bench; the platooning outfielder went 2-for-3 with a run scored and a run batted in.

Whatever was ailing Ortiz now seems to have affected Kevin Youkilis. The first baseman has looked lost at the plate and has struck out at an uncharacteristic rate. In April his OBP was .505, in May it went down to .441, and thus far in June it is .391.

Penny threw 100 pitches over five innings and needed four relievers to bail him out, and yet there was not an iota of the vitriol that is heaped upon Daisuke Matsuzaka when he does the same.

David Ortiz crushed the ball in the fourth, deposited it into the visitors’ bullpen, after missing one by just a few feet in the second inning. The sold out crowd chanted his nickname but there was no curtain call this time. With his fifth homer of the season Ortiz preferred to stay in the dugout; he most likely with the hopes that such shots will be commonplace and not require any additional fanfare.

Tim Wakefield dispatched the first three batters with a mere nine pitches, striking out two of them in six. The Marlins had many things working against them: their inexperience in hitting the knuckleball, their free-swinging approach in the box (the Marlins lead the majors in strikeouts), and their excitement over playing in front of a sold-out crowd (the Marlins have about half the attendance of the Red Sox).

The former Devil Ray Jorge Cantu led off the second and took advantage of his prior knowledge of the knuckler. From the four-hole as the designated hitter he doubled to left field. Jeremy Hermida followed up with a base on balls to get Wakefield into an early jam. Wakefield doesn’t get unnerved with runners in scoring position. He went about his business and induced a ground ball double play off the bat of Dan Uggla and got Cody Ross to pop out.

Uggla brought the ugliness from the top of the inning into the bottom of the frame. Jacoby Ellsbury knocked a two-out single off his glove and both he and Hanley Ramirez couldn’t stop Nick Green’s center cut chopper. Uggla even tried to barehand the ball, but rather than help control the inside game he simply changed the trajectory of the ball and confused his shortstop. In the game there were two men who could score from second on that play, Ellsbury and Emilio Bonifacio.

Bonifacio flashed his speed in the third, running out an infield single to Mike Lowell, who had barehanded the ball to try and turn the out. Like Ellsbury he swiped second and then scored on a single. The score wouldn’t be tied for long.

J.D. Drew singled to left and was driven in by Jason Bay’s single to the left field corner. Chris Coghlan manned that part of the field and made it clear that left field isn’t his natural position by fumbling around for the ball as it ping-ponged in the crook. Drew motored home for the tie-breaking run but Bay got caught on the base paths.

National League teams play Fenway badly, particularly around the left field wall. Nearly every “Baseball Blooper” reel shown on the Jumbotron at Fenway features Lastings Milledge’s dreadful outing with the Mets. The poor play isn’t limited to tracking fly balls but also reading the defense while on the basepaths. Marlins shortstop Ramirez attempted to stretch a single into a double but was hosed by a well-aimed dart by Bay.

Dennis Eckersley called Ramirez’s play silly and rightly so. With the score 8-2, the single run Ramirez represented wasn’t worth the risk of giving up an out. Perhaps he was trying to show off in front of his former team’s fans.

Catchers are a crafty lot. They have those secret signals with their pitchers and the semophores with the infielders when there are runners on base. George Kottaras, despite being a rookie, demonstrated that guile. In the top of the fifth Kottaras knocked out Ross Gload’s batted ball fair and then tagged out the batter out. Later that inning Terry Francona and Kottaras laughed about it when the catcher was waiting for his turn at bat.

The sign on the Red Sox bullpen’s latrine door says it all: Death Zone, skulls and crossbones, No Prisoners. Manny Delcarmen, Takashi Saito, and Daniel Bard shutdown the visitors for the last three innings.