Sliced & Diced: Orioles maul Matsuzaka, Sox

Baltimore 11, Sox 5
WP: Leicester (1-1)
LP: Matsuzaka (14-12)
HRs: BOS-Papi (28); BAL-Redman (1), Moore (1), Markakis (17)

SUMMARY
Slumping Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka got filleted like a blue tuna, allowing 8 earned runs in just 2 2/3 innings of work, the lowlight coming when recently acquired Scott Moore blasted a grand slam for his first hit with the Birds, and Baltimore snapped an 11-game home losing streak with an emphatic win over Boston.

#1 STUNNER Moore 2-4, R, 4BI
He was 0-13 on the season and 0-8 since coming to Baltimore from the Cubs in the August 31st trade of Steve Trachsel, but his first hit in that hideous uniform was certainly a memorable one.

PAN's FAUN Dice-K 2.2IP, 6H, 8ER, 3BB, 2K, 2HR
Not only was this his shortest start of the season, but in his last five starts the fact that Matsuzaka is 1-4 and has allowed 34 hits and 28 earned runs in 27 1/3 innings for a 9.22 ERA has alarm bells and warnings lights going berserk all over Yawkey Way.

Warning! Warning! Your $101 million investment is melting down!!

RECAP
This one's gonna be a quick hitter because I missed the early part of this one due to my son's LL practice and the latter parts due to stomach-turning content viewed after joining the game in-progress.

For the fourth time in his last five starts Dice-K got lit up like the burning man sculpture, and this time it wasn't the Stanks or high-scoring Jays or Rays that inflicted the wounds, it was the artists formerly known as the Baltimore Orioles, a team that has been so sorry in recent weeks that its pitchers resort to beaning other players as payback for their own fuck ups.

But Matsuzaka made some middling, meandering miscreants seem like the second coming of the Blake St. Bombers. Not only did he blow a 4-1 lead when he gave up seven runs in the third inning, but he surrendered home runs of the season to a pair of guys who hadn't hit any longballs all year.

From the highlights I saw Big Papi hand Dice-K a 2-0 lead when he jacked his 28th homer of the season with Dustin Bullseye Pedroia aboard in the first, but Matsuzaka let B-More halve that lead when the immortal Tike Redman slammed a solo shot in the bottom of the frame.

Redman's last homer in the bigs? May 2nd, 2005 at Houston for Pittsburgh.

Boston worked to get Matsuzaka a couple more runs in the second when two runs scored on doubles by Drew, Lugo and Ellsbury, and Matsuzaka-san obliged them with a 1-2-3 bottom half.

After the Sox failed to score against the other Jon Leicester (pronounced Lester) in the top of the third, Baltimore decided to go ballistic on Boston in the bottom half of the inning.

Unfortunately this is where i came in.

Things went from bad (single, double, walk to the first three batters) to worse (bases-loaded walk, RBI single, bases-loaded walk to the next three) to "close your eyes, hide the kids, and get out the bottle of tequila" gruesome, but this resembling a bad Creature Double Feature flick, the pain was extended a little bit for effect.

That's because the next batter, Audrey Huff, nearly hit a granny but his long, deep shot went a scootch foul, and when Dice fanned Huff and got Jay (im) Payton to pop up to get to the unheard of Moore with two outs, it looked he had put the worst of the damage behind him.

Not even close.

Moore, a 23-year-old third baseman who has only played five games in the majors this season, took a 2-2 offering from Matsuzaka and deposited it into the first row of seats in right for a less-majestic but more-damaging drive than Huff's, and as the flock of Birds circled the bases Dice-K stayed in a bent over position with his hands on his knees as if to say, "so this is what it feels like to get fucked in the ass."

And that was the end of my viewing.

That's when I turned to the USF/Auburn football game, a contest that has been a pretty big deal down here in the Bay Area and one that definitely turned out to be a much better and entertaining game (USF won 26-23 in OT, in case you missed it) than the one I avoided.

I guess a combination of Tavarez pitching and Lugo's defense gave the Birds three more runs in the next inning, and it appears that the only positives for Boston were Papi's 3-3 performance, three shutout innings of relief from Devern Hansack, and the fact that they only have to play these turds one more time this season.