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August 18, 2007
PAWTUCKET – Home cooking hasn’t tasted very well for the Pawtucket Red Sox this season. They hope that changes the rest of the way.
The PawSox play 11 of their last 17 games at McCoy Stadium and hope they all end like last night’s 5-4 thriller. The Sox scratched out a ninth inning run on two walks, a hit batsman and a game-winning single by Joe McEwing to knock off the Syracuse Chiefs in the first game of a four-game set.
The Sox are now 27-34 at McCoy, nearly the worst home record in the International League. But Pawtucket is coming off what could be a critical, but tiring, 11-game road trip. The Sox finished 6-5 on the tour that took them to Scranton, Syracuse and Ottawa. Friday’s game with the Lynx was rained out but that was a fortunate break since the Sox were able to begin a grueling nine-hour bus ride home a few hours early.
``It’s a grind this time of year. At the start of the season you see that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s very true,’’ said McEwing, a 34-year old veteran who’s played in the majors for nine years with four different teams. ``It seems like we’ve been on the road forever but we’re hoping to finish the year playing good baseball.’’
Starting pitcher David Pauley didn’t throw like someone who was crumpled in a bus for most of the night. He no-hit the Chiefs for the first 4.2 innings as Pawtucket built a 4-0 lead after five innings. All four runs came in the bottom of the fifth. After a Brandon Moss double and walk to Bobby Scales, a sacrifice bunt and another walk loaded the bases. Then Alex Prieto delivered the big hit, lining a hard single up the middle that scored two runs. Jacoby Ellsbury followed with an opposite-field liner into the left field corner that scored two more runs. Prieto made a great slide over Syracuse catcher Sal Fasano for the fourth run.
Pauley tired a bit and let up two runs in the sixth, the second of which came after a mental mistake when he failed to look Wayne Lydon all the way back to third base on a grounder back to the mound. Ryan Roberts led off the seventh with a solo homer to make it 4-3 and end Pauley’s outing. Edgar Martinez came on and allowed an unearned run after a single, a two-base throwing error by Scales and a fielder’s choice plated the tying run.
Martinez settled down and combined with Javy Lopez to pitch a shutout eighth inning. Bryan Corey did the same in the ninth and ended up picking up the win (he’s now 5-8) as Pawtucket rallied off Jaime Vermilyea. Junior Spivey worked his way to a one-out walk and then Vermilyea hit the ninth batter in the order, Alex Prieto, in the leg. Ellsbury walked to load the bases and that brought up McEwing, who’s hit safely in 13 of his last 16 games at a .340 clip.
Sensing that Vermilyea was struggling with his control, McEwing sat on the first pitch and lined a fastball that sunk into center in front of Lydon for the game-winning hit. ``I tried to be aggressive in that situation,’’ McEwing said. ``
--KEVIN McNAMARA
Posted by Chris Venditto 
at 10:12 PM to PawSox
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