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Game Story: Indians 8, Red Sox 4 »
May 30, 2007
PAWTUCKET -- Briefly climbing out of the IL North cellar with last week’s victories over Syracuse, only to have the Chiefs send them right back down with two wins in the second half of that series, the Pawtucket Red Sox haven’t done much to help their cause in their current series against Columbus either.
Seemingly flirting with a no-hitter through 3 2/3 innings, lefty Kason Gabbard watched a strong start fall apart, as the PawSox dropped its second straight to the Clippers with an 8-4 setback, last night at McCoy Stadium.
Pawtucket - which drops to 20-29 and has not been above .500 since an April 13 win over Scranton/Wilkes-Barre made them 5-4 - took a 1-0 lead in the second when Clippers right-hander Tim Redding gave up three straight singles to Bobby Scales, Michael Tucker and Ed Rogers, then a sacrifice fly to left to George Kottaras.
But that’s the only run Redding, the eventual winner, would allow over his 7.1-inning stint, and the PawSox’ slim lead soon evaporated when Gabbard ran into some control problems.
After retiring 11 of the first 12 batters he faced and starting off the fourth by fanning Bernie Castro and Darnell McDonald, the southpaw walked three of the next five Clippers and gave up his first two hits to the other two.
Walking Kory Casto and DAngelo Jimenez, Gabbard then gave up an infield single to Michael Restovich that loaded the bases.
Issuing another walk to Abraham Nunez that plated Casto, Gabbard then surrendered a two-run single to right to Brandon Harper that put Columbus up, 3-1.
Gabbard was lifted in the sixth after Restovich belted one of his offerings off the concession stand wall in center field for a solo home run.
``He got two outs, two strikes and then we’ve seen it in baseball before, he just got out of rhythm,’’ PawSox manager Ron Johnson said of Gabbard (4-2). ``His curveball and his changeup were really outstanding pitches for him tonight. Got a little bit off with the command of the fastball, but all in all, 5 1/3 innings, 4 hits, 4 runs. That was the one inning where he walked those guys. That was it. You can’t really look at that and go, `He struggled.’ Well, did he? Four hits. This was a pretty good hitting ball club, as we saw late in the game.’’
PawSox reliever Mike Burns, on the otherhand, did struggle mightily, lasting just 1 1/3 innings after giving up four more runs on five hits - including a three-run blast into the right-field picnic area to Casto and an RBI double to Nunez, both in the seventh inning. (It didn’t help that third baseman Chad Spann overthrew first on a sac bunt by Castro on the second play of that inning, which allowed Brandon Watson to advance to third and Castro to make it to second.)
Although the gap proved too large for Pawtucket to close, Johnson was pleased to see his team rally for three runs in the eighth, when the PawSox batted around the order and capitalized on back-to-back doubles by Kottaras and Spann, three walks and an error.
``These guys are playing hard,’’ said Johnson. ``They play hard every night. They hustle every night. They bust their butt. It’s a game of patience. It’s a game of discipline. We battled back. We scratched for some. I’m really proud of the club to get them on the board late. We’re just lacking that one little thing right there, and that’s the gapper. That’s what we’ve been missing, where somebody could get (a hit)into a gap. So back to the drawing board (tonight).’’
--CAROLYN THORNTON
Posted by Chris Venditto 
at 10:54 PM to PawSox
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