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Sox Lose Ugly In Detroit, 10-9
By Administrator | May 8, 2008
It doesn’t get much uglier than this one.
This one was U-G-L-Y from the outset… starting when Clay Buchholz slipped and inadvertently kicked a slow dribbler that was heading for foul territory and ending when Placido Polanco’s bat exploded while connecting with a Jonathan Papelbon fastball — turning his Big Stick into kindling on a play that drove in the game-winning run for the Tigers at the end of the 10-9 debacle.
Buchholz, who allowed five runs on ten hits in just four innings, pitched in bad luck all night… that, combined with two bad changeups, was enough to doom his outing. Of the ten hits he surrendered, one was a check-swing dribbler to shortstop, one was the kicked dribbler, one was a broken bat fister and another was a bloop doen the right-field line. If it wasn’t for bad luck, he’d have had no luck at all in The Motor City.
Ditto Papelbon. His bad-luck ninth inning started with an ‘excuse me’ check swing single off the bat of rookie designated hitter Matt Joyce and continued when Julio Lugo bungled a slow roller off the bat of Edgar Renteria to put two me on with no one out. After a sac bunt and a ground out (which tied the game), hed fell behind Polanco 3-0, but battled back to 3-2 when he busted a fastball in on the second baseman’s hands — shattering his bat into kindling. But almost as if scripted, the swing produced a weak little bloop that just evaded the outstretched glove of a diving Julio Lugo — producing Polanco’s fifth hit of the game and a 10-9 Detroit victory.
The Tigers slapped eighteen hits (only two extra base hits) around Comerica Park in snapping their five-game losing streak… an assortment of line drives, ground balls, check-swing dribblers, bloops, and broken-bat quails that gave you a sense that this would be the Tigers day.
But the never-say-die Red Sox roared back from a pair of four-run deficits to take the lead after eight innings. For their part, the Red Sox offense pounded a dozen hits around the ballpark, including a pair of home runs by Kevin Youkilis and another three-run, game-tying bomb by Mike Lowell… in all, seven of the Red Sox twelve hits were extra-base hits.
But their efforts were done-in by Julio Lugo’s tenth error of the season and a broken-bat quail.
Some games are destined to go that way, I guess.
After Buchholz’ bad-luck outing, manager Terry Francona brought Julian Tavarez into the game… he surrendered three runs on four hits in one inning of work — raising his ERA to 7.15. David Aardsma, Javier Lopez and Hideki Okajima each then provided an inning of scoreless relief to allow the offense the opportunity to get back into the game — before the disastrous ninth inning.
The Sox offense was led by Lowell (three hits and three rbi) and Youkilis (two home runs, three rbi) and Jacoby Ellsbury (two hits, two runs, two stolen bases)… but on this night, not even nine runs was sufficient to put the game in the win column. So the Sox and Tigers will go at it one more time this evening, with Josh Beckett opposing Justin Verlander at 7 PM… the game will be broadcast on NESN and WRKO (680 AM).
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The blown save was Papelbon’s first in eleven save opportunities this season.
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Curt Schilling will play catch again today (on flat ground) in the next step of his shoulder rehab program.
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Ellsbury is now 22-for-22 in stolen bases for his career. The Red Sox, as a team, are perfect in their last twenty stolen base attempts.
Topics: Sox Games, Sox Players |
