WP: Romero (1-0)
LP: Ray (3-3)
HRs: none
Lugo's infield chopper made for one memorable Mother's Day
RECAP:
Wouldn't you know it would a game like this would have to take place on a day like today.
No offense, moms, but I would venture to guess that more than half of the usual members of Red Sox Nation missed today's game due to their observation of Mother's Day; some were out at a fancy post-church dinner, others maybe having the kids over to the house for a nice home-cooked meal, still others might have taken three generations of the Johnson family to the freaking aquarium, I don't know.
What I do know is that at the time of one of the greatest regular-season comebacks in Red Sox history, a game in which the hungry, never-say-die Sox scraped back from the brink of oblivion to deliver a staggering, soul-crushing blow to the stunned, slain opponent, I was at the movie theater watching Tobey Maguire trying to act serious, mean and sexy, all in one film, while he donned two different colored latex suits and fought with three different enemies, one composed entirely of sand, while becoming pussy-whipped by not one but two chicks.
Yes, you guessed it, Nation members, while Julio Lugo and Erik Hinske were doing their best imitations of Big Papi and Dave Roberts circa 2004, I was in the theater with the fam watching the bloated, soulless CGI monstrosity that is "Spiderman III"...
...it is a day that will live in "missed Sox games" infamy.
Why didn't you just DVR the game? You have three of them and subscribe to Extra Innings, right?
I want to thank my mom for that question, and the simple answer is one of the DVRs is hooked up to the tiny (20") set in the bedroom, so there's no use in using that, and the other two are full of shit that I'm still either waiting to watch or saving for some unspecific, OCD-like reason.
So instead of erasing something like the 2007 Final Four &/or National Championship game, a couple of episodes of either "Planet Earth", "Sopranos", or "The Office", or an MTV HD concert of the Foo Fighters, I missed one of the greatest regular season comebacks in Sox history.
Yes, I am an idiot (thanks, Mom.)
To make matters worse, the only highlights I've seen are shorter than the Zapruder film, and obviously no highlight package short of NESN's "Sox in Two" could do this one justice.
I'll try to describe what happened , but without witnessing the action firsthand I feel a little less of a Sox fan for doing so. If any of this account is untrue somewhat distorted, feel free to make a rude comment to correct me.
From what I gather, Josh Beckett pitched well but not great, striking out seven batters through the first four innings, and although he did allow a couple of runs in the 1st, most of that damage came courtesy of Tek's throwing error. But as the fourth inning ended Becks went straight to the clubhouse and would not return, suffering from what has been called an "avulsion" on his right index finger- in lay men's terms, a cut.
And just like that, the fortunes of the Sox seemed to change.
Because on the other side of the field young Baltimore starter Jeremy Guthrie was pitching like a seasoned veteran. The 28-year-old lefty reliever was making just the fourth start of his career, and he shut down the mighty Sox offense, a unit that had been averaging 8 1/2 runs and nearly 12 hits per game for the last week, taking a 3-hit shutout into the 9th inning.
By the 9th the Birds were leading 5-0 and had to be in complete control of this one. Guthrie was dealing, and after Julio Lugo grounded out to start the inning, all hope appeared lost for the Sox. But then, something magical happened, something that seemed so obscure and minuscule at the time but at the end of the year could become a key bookmarked scene on a World Series DVD set- Coco reached base on catcher Ramon Hernandez' error on his routine infield pop up.
What followed is one of those perfect storm's of baseball poetry that makes the game so beautiful and keeps fans coming back for more-a bitty blunder turned into the play that makes fans think "maybe this is the year (again)"; manager Sam Perlozzo pulled Guthrie after that error and went with former Rays castoff Danys Baez, and we all know what happens when a former D-Rays closer enters the scene: bye bye lead. Baez immediately surrendered a double to Papi, and the Sox were on the board, 5-1.
No biggie, right. Still a 4-run deficit with just 2 outs left, what could happen? Well, Willy Mo, who had taken over in left for Manny in the top of the inning, lined a single to left, and Perlozzo was forced to bring in closer Chris Ray; Ray had already blown a save vs. Boston on April 26th, so obviously the confidence factor was there for the Sox. So what happened? Ray walked J.D. Drew to load the bases, then gave Youk a free pass to push across Papi with the second run of the inning, 5-2.
(Now it's getting interesting) I would have thought, had I been watching.
With the crowd roaring and the pressure mounting, the Captain came through in the clutch again. He ripped Ray's second pitch for a 2-run double that made the score 5-4, and suddenly there was the crazy possibility that Boston could win it. After all, if the events of October 2004 could take place, anything's possible.
And the impossible did happen despite the disheartening play of Youk being out at the plate on Alex Cora's grounder. A walk to Hinske loaded the bases with two outs, and when Lugo smacked a routine chopper in between first & second the game was all but over. Except as Millah lobbed the ball to Ray, speeding in front of a hustling Lugo, the Tampa native took his eyes off the ball and it skidded off his glove and towards the Sox dugout.
As Tek raced in and scored the tying run and Hinske scampered in with the game winner, bedlam erupted in the Hub and a tidal wave of joy rippled through the Nation, and one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history became one of the greatest Mother's Day presents of all time. In fact it was the first time that a team had come back from a deficit of as much as 5-o in the 9th inning since 1979.
I just wish I hadn't been up to my eyeballs in bad acting and sensory-numbing special effects at the time.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment