Sox hand Os 11th straight home loss, and things got ugly

Sox 4, Baltimore 0
WP: Lester (4-0)
LP: Cabrera (9-15)
HRs: None

SUMMARY
Jon Lester remained unbeaten by defeating the Orioles for the second time in a week and Boston got enough offense to salvage a win thanks to the erratic Daniel Cabrera, whose weak pitching and wild temper nearly ignited a benches-clearing-brawl in the top of the fourth inning.

#1 STUNNER Lester 7IP, 4H, 0ER, 2BB, 4K
The young lefty tossed his second straight quality start, both vs. the Birds, lowering his ERA by a full run and proving the Sox have another full-fledged young major league arm to bolster the staff.

Also, Jon, I officially apologize for mentioning you and Cabrera in the same breath in my preview post.

PAN's FAUN Cabrera 3.2IP, 6H, 3ER, 2BB, 4K, BK, Melee
It's bad enough this disappointing 26-year old can't get his shit together on the mound, but now he's going to try and take his frustrations out on the smallest players on best team in the game?

Way to stay classy, Daniel.

RECAP
Must be football season--my pregame prediction sucked worse than a Mr. Bean movie.

Having seen these two clubs beat each others brains out for most of the 16 games between them so far this season and with two potentially shaky hurlers starting, I had some bad vibes that this was going to be another one of those "pray the offense scores enough runs to get ahead and then hold on" type of games.

Wrong again, piss-poor prognosticator. One starter was steady as a rock, while the other was an embarrassment to his team and the league.

Jon Lester handled the flightless Birds like an expert ornithologist, holding the Os to a mere four hits in seven innings without allowing a runner to get past second base, and it turned out the only kind of fight Baltimore could give Boston on the field had to do with head-hunting pitches and cheap intimidation tactics.

For the sake of wordcount let me cut right to what was really the only excitement in an otherwise mercifully uneventful contest between these two familiar foes.

Boston grabbed an early 2-0 lead when Kevin Youkilis walked and J.D. Boo doubled him over to third base to begin the second inning. Captain Clutch followed up his late-inning heroics of the past two nights with a money shot early tonight when he drove a single into right field to easily score Youk, and then Coco, who would soon find himself embroiled in all the controversy, lofted a sac fly that brought Drew home and set the stage for the fireworks to follow.

Boston let another bases-loaded opportunity slip away without so much as a single run scoring in the top of the third and then Lester set the Birds down in order in the bottom of the frame, but things got out of hand quickly in the top of the fourth.

Coco started the inning, as he so often does, by trying to bunt his way on, a move that apparently didn't sit well with Cabrera, who must think you have to play the game by his rules so he has a better chance to win.

Crisp then grounded a seemingly harmless single to right field, and even though consecutive groundouts by Lugo and Ellsbury moved him around to third, with two outs it didn't appear as if anything major was going to happen here.

Wrong again, dickwad.

As Cabrera got ready to pitch to Dustin Pedroia, Coco was dancing around over at third like Eddie Griffin on speed, and by the time Pedroia looked at ball one Cabrera was flustered to the point of doing something foolish.

Like balking Crisp in on a cockamamie attempt to scare him back to the bag.

Having been humiliated by a man about as intimidating as Arthur Ashe and obviously realizing that he is once again saddled with a losing record, sky-high ERA and on a horrid team, Cabrera retaliated the only way he could--by throwing the next pitch at the littlest guy on the team's skull.

Luckily Inch High Pedroia ducked out of the way and only took the assassination attempt off the shoulder, but if he wasn't quick enough that pitch could have "split him in two" as teammate Mike Lowell so aptly put it after the game.

Needless to say no one on the Boston bench took too kindly to that reprehensible act of cowardice, and a stream of players from both teams emerged from the dugouts and bullpens to air their discrepancies in an open forum.

To add insult to ignorance Cabrera waited until his teammates restrained him, then proceeded to wave his arms in an apparent invitation to take on all comers, but by that time the man had embarrassed himself and his team so much that I don't think anyone wanted anything to do with him, including his manager.

After a lengthy delay and the ejections of Cabrera, Os manager Dave Trembley and Sox catcher Kevin Cash, who wasn't even in the game, order was restored without any real punches being thrown, and Boston would tack on one more run in the seventh on a single and stolen base by Ellsbury and an RBI single from Youk before the latest chapter in a wild season series was in the books.

After the game Cabrera reportedly said the pitch "slipped out of his hand", yet even his beleaguered but classy manager knew better.

"I think he lost his cool," Trembley said. "I can tell you very honestly it's going to be addressed. I'm just glad Pedroia didn't get hurt. He didn't do anything."

And that's how bad things have gotten in B-More. The team has lost 11 in a row at home for the fist time in half a century and 15 of 17 overall, their ace Eric Bedard has just been shelved for the season, and the once glorious Bird's nest of Camden has turned into MASN--Mid Atlantic Sox Nation--and the manager won't even back his pitcher in a feud with a division rival.

The Mother's Day Miracle, the Labor Day No-No, Millar's 10th inning walkoff and the Kevin Garnett-inspired comeback game are a few of the memorable contests these clubs have played this season, and now we can add the Daniel Cabrera Beanball Classic to the list of interesting events that have populated this series.

The only questions left are can we get an encore, and do we want more?

One things for sure, I can't fucking wait to be done with these filthy free-falling fowl.