« Cora's Workload Increases
Main
Francona makes a promise »
May 4, 2008
BY STEVEN KRASNER
Journal Sports Writer
BOSTON – Familiarity, apparently, breeds a bunch of base hits and runs for the Red Sox’ offense. Or maybe it was just a case of being comfortable at home.
Last weekend on the road, Boston was effectively shut down by a pair of Tampa Bay right-handers, Edwin Jackson and James Shields. That trend was loudly reversed this weekend at Fenway Park.
Jackson permitted only one run on five hits over seven innings in a 2-1 Rays win last Saturday. Shields was even better the following day, blanking the Red Sox on two hits in a complete-game 3-0 victory. Shields fanned seven.
So Boston’s hitters took their lumps on the road against the duo. In Fenway, it was the opposite. The Tampa Bay pitchers who were pummeled as the Red Sox hitters, having seen Jackson and Shields a week earlier, made adjustments that were highly effective.
Friday night, Boston’s offense battered Jackson for six runs on nine hits in only four-plus innings in a 7-3 triumph. Last night, Shields gave up more hits to the first three batters of the game than he had in his nine-inning, 99-pitch performance at Tropicana Field.
Indeed, the first four Red Sox batters hit safely – Jacoby Ellsbury (single), Dustin Pedroia (single), David Ortiz (RBI double) and Manny Ramirez (two-run single) – accounting for a quick 3-0 lead. Over his 3 2/3-inning stint, Shields coughed up 10 hits and 7 Runs, allowing at least one run in each inning. He threw 98 pitches, one fewer than in his complete-game win.
Of course, the same familiarity-breeds-hits theory might have been applied to the Rays against Josh Beckett, at least early.
Last Sunday, Beckett whiffed 13 Rays and gave up only four hits and one earned run in seven innings. Last night, over the first four innings, Beckett was touched up for three runs on five hits and had punched out only two.
After limiting the damage in a fourth-inning jam to one run, though, Beckett retired 12 of the final 14 batters, surrendering only one more run, on a homer by Akinori Iwamura in the eighth.
**************************
The Red Sox have been the beneficiaries of a pair of do-overs this week.
And they have made great use of them.
Last night, with runners at second and third and none out in the first, Ramirez hit a chopper up the third-base line. Tampa Bay third baseman Evan Longoria charged the ball instead of hanging back and seeing if it would roll foul. Longoria gloved the ball and threw on the run to first, his throw beating Ramirez for what looked to be the first out of the inning as a run scored.
Plate umpire Bill Welke, though, ruled Longoria had snatched the ball in foul territory. So the out didn’t count, the runners went back to their respective bases and Ramirez got back in the batter’s box. He then grounded Shields’ next pitch up the middle for a two-run single.
On Thursday night, Coco Crisp was handed a second chance when his game-ending fly ball to right was negated by a balk by Toronto’s B.J. Ryan. Crisp drilled the next pitch he saw for a single to right.
**************************
Shields was charged with a wild pitch in the second, but Ellsbury deserved the assist on the play.
Ellsbury, who was 9-for-9 in stolen-base attempts, was on first with one out. Shields’ 1-and-1 pitch to Pedroia was a changeup in the dirt. As catcher Dioner Navarro moved a half-step to his right to block it, he took his eye off the ball to glance at Ellsbury, checking to see if he was on the move. Ellsbury had taken his secondary lead, but had stopped.
The ball clanged off Navarro’s foot and bounced away, allowing Ellsbury to ease into second base. He scored when Pedroia dunked Shields’ next pitch over first baseman Carlos Pena.
*************************
A half-step in the wrong direction likely cost Tampa Bay a run in the fourth.
The Rays had one run in, the bases loaded and one out and were trailing by only 5-3 when Nathan Haynes laced a liner to Ramirez in left field.
Pena, the runner at third, took a half-step toward home when Haynes made contact. Realizing the ball was going to be caught by Ramirez, Pena retraced his steps back to third so he could tag up. His momentum was going back to the bag as Ramirez made the grab.
Pena tagged quickly and tried to get his momentum shifted to the plate as Ramirez made his throw home. The throw was accurate and easily beat Pena, who was a dead duck at the plate for the rally-killing double play.
Had Pena headed back to third on contact, he would have had a better chance of scoring.
***********************
Tampa Bay’s Akinori Iwamura gave away his offensive plan in the third.
On the 1-and-0 pitch from Josh Beckett, Iwamura prepared to bunt for a base hit but pulled the bat back as the ball sailed up and away. Third baseman Mike Lowell, already in on the grass, moved in another step, on full alert.
So when Iwamura dropped down a bunt – and it was a good one -- on the 2-and-1 pitch, Lowell was in great position to make a play. He charged the ball, barehanded it and fired to first in one motion, his throw beating Iwamura by a half-step.
skrasner@projo.com / 401-277-7340
Posted by Steven Krasner 
at 10:08 AM | Permalink
