« Update f-f-f-r-r-o-m-m-m KC
Main
Baseball Today: Thursday, April 5 »
April 4, 2007
In Monday’s season opener, Curt Schilling never gave his team a chance. Last night, in the second game of the season, it was the Kansas City Royals who were left helpless by a combination of the cold and strong Red Sox pitching.
Josh Beckett shut the Royals down on just two hits over five innings and got all the backing he would need before he even took the mound. The Sox provided him with three runs in the top of the first and cruised to an easy 7-1 victory for their first win of the 2007 season.
Mike Lowell slammed a two-run double for the big hit in the first and Kevin Youkilis provided a two-run homer as the capper in the seventh.
The Sox got four innings of quality relief from four different pitchers -- Javier Lopez, Kyle Snyder, J.C. Romero and Joel Pineiro. The quartet combined to limit the Royals to just one hit the rest of the way and ensure that they didn’t crawl back into the game.
Together, they retired nine out of 10 hitters from the sixth through the eighth.
In two games, the Boston bullpen has yielded just two runs over eight innings of work.
Beckett, beginning his second season with the Red Sox, did not enjoy a one-two-three inning over his five frames, but managed to limit the damage as the Royals stranded six baserunners over five innings, including three in scoring position. He walked four in his five innings and struck out five.
Beckett’s toughest inning came in the third and it came as a result of some uncharacteristically sloppy fielding from Lowell at third base. With one out, Lowell, who made three errors on the night, was charged with errors on consecutive plays, extending Beckett’s workload. But with baserunners at first and second, Beckett caught Mark Teahen looking at a called third strike before retiring Mike Sweeney on a flyout to right as J.D. Drew made a nice running catch in the gap.
The Royals got to Beckett for their only run in the fourth. Emil Brown walked with one out and went to third on a double to left by Ross Gload. A sacrifice fly to left from Jason LaRue plated Brown, but Beckett limited further damage by striking out Tony Pena Jr.
After five innings, with his pitch count at 94 and the temperature plummeting, Beckett’s night was over.
The Sox wasted little time gettiing to Kansas City starter Odalis Perez, scoring three runs in the first after two were out.
David Ortiz walked and Manny Ramirez singled him to second. Drew, one of the few Red Sox hitters to enjoy a solid afternoon at the plate Monday, drilled a double to right, scoring Ortiz and sending Ramirez to third.
Lowell, who clubbed 47 doubles in his first season with the Red Sox, picked up right where he left off last season, collecting his second in as many games, ripping a double to left that scored both Ramirez and Drew.
Perez seemed to settle down after that, retiring 11 of the next 12. But in the sixth, the Sox got to him again and he didn’t get out of the inning.
Ramirez drew a one-out walk before moving to second on Drew’s second base hit, a single to right, which signaled the end of Perez’s night. Reliever Joakim Soria walked Lowell to fill the bases and Jason Varitek’s sacrifice fly to right scored Ramirez.
The Sox kept piling on against the Kansas City bullpen. In the seventh against Todd Wellemeyer, Dustin Pedroia walked, was moved to second by a rare sacrifice and rode home on Youkilis’ first homer of the season.
It was more of the same in the eighth against Ryan Braun when a walk to Coco Crisp, a charitably ruled infield single for Pedroia and an opposite-field blooper to right from Lugo accounted for the Sox’ final run.
--SEAN McADAM
Posted by Corey Bourassa 
at 11:23 PM | Permalink
