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Buchholz, Sox Fall In Kansas City, 4-3
By Administrator | August 5, 2008
Clay Buchholz continues to struggle in his sophomore season with the Red Sox… he alternates oft-times brilliant innings with lousy innings and, as a result, he remains winless since early May.
Tonight in Kansas City, he surrendered four runs on seven hits and three walks over six innings in losing his seventh game of the season to the Royals, 4-3.
Meanwhile, KC starter Gil Meche earned his 10th win by allowing two runs on four hits over the same six innings… he struck out nine, but walked five in an uncharacteristically wild outing. But he made the pitches he had to make when he needed to make them — and so Kansas City won the first game of the three-game set.
Afterwards, Meche — who is 7-1 with a 2.66 ERA over his last 11 starts — said: “When your arm feels good, good things happen. I’ve just been relying on my fastball and my curveball pretty much, and using my other two pitches every once in a while”.
Trailing 4-2 entering the ninth inning, the Sox rallied for a run off closer Joakim Soria, but with the bases loaded and two outs, Sean Casey lined out to right field to end the game.
Sox manager Terry Francona said: “Meche really settled in. He started throwing his breaking ball and he had enough on his fastball. He made some pretty good pitches”.
The Red Sox scored twice in the first inning, then were shut out until the ninth. J D Drew led off the game with a walk followed by a Dustin Pedroia double. Drew scored on a David Ortiz ground out and Pedroia came in on a double by Kevin Youkilis.
Buchholz allowed one run in the second inning and three in the third inning. KC would not score again, but thanks to Meche they didn’t need to. Alex Gordon hit a solo home run in the second to cut the Sox lead in half… in the third inning, Mike Aviles and Esteban German singled with one out and advanced on a wild pitch. Mark Teahen tied the game with an RBI single. Billy Butler then hit a sac fly to make it 3-2. Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, Buchholz grazed John Buck with a pitch, thereby forcing in the eventual game-winning run.
In the ninth inning, the Sox loaded the bases with two out on a pair of singles and a walk. Jason Bay drove in the third run on an infield single on which Gordon and Aviles collided (it really should have been a ground out to end the game). Casey then ripped a line drive into right field that was caught on the run for the final out.
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Jon Lester was AL pitcher of the month for July. He went 3-0 with a 2.05 ERA in four starts and had the lowest ERA of any AL pitcher with at least 25 innings.
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Royals SS Mike Aviles was named AL co-player of the week after hitting .577 with seven runs, three doubles, a triple, two homers and five RBIs.
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Mike Lowell had an injection for his (right) hip flexor and missed the game.
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Dustin Pedroia had three hits — a first-inning double and two singles — to extend his road hitting streak to 25 games… it is the longest such streak by a Boston player since Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, 95 years ago.
Topics: Sox Games, Sox Players |
