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Things Are All Even In The East As Red Sox Batter Kazmir, Rays, 13-5
By Administrator | September 15, 2008
Looking at the pitching matchups for this series, this was the game the Red Sox were most likely to lose.
Entering play tonight, Tampa Bay was a major league best 53-21 at home in 2008, including a perfect 6-0 against the Red Sox. Their starting pitcher, Scott Kazmir, was 7-1, with a 2.10 ERA in a dozen starts at “The Trop” (Tropicana Field) this year; not only that, Kazmir has been outstanding against the Red Sox in his career (while his record was only 6-6, his ERA is was just 3.02 in nineteen career starts against Boston). Lastly, the Red Sox have hit a miniscule .211 in their six games at Tropicana Field this season (as opposed to .285 in their 143 other games).
So what happened tonight? The Red Sox battered Kazmir and the Rays bullpen, hitting six home runs (their most in a game since 2003) and scoring a baker’s dozen runs.
It was Kazmir’s worst start of the year in, arguably, the biggest start of his life. He lasted just three innings, allowing nine runs on six hits and four walks… he surrendered the first four Boston homers.
The battering started early and often. Kazmir struggled with wildness from the get-go, walking each of the first two batters he faced (Coco Crisp and Dustin Pedroia). He appeared to be aiming the ball to Sox DH David Ortiz, who ripped the southpaw’s third offering into the right field grandstand for a three-run home run and a early lead. After Kazmir retired Kevin Youkilis on a broken-bat fly ball to left field, Mike Lowell golfed an 0-1 slider into the left field grandstand for a 4-0 lead.
But the nightmare was just beginning for the Rays — who failed to sell out tonight’s game in spite of the fact that it was the BIGGEST game in franchise history.
After Akinori Iwamura got a run back for Tampa on his sixth home run of the season, Jason Bay led off the fourth inning with a home run into the rafters. After Jed Lowrie walked, Jason Varitek homered to left field to extend the Sox lead to 7-1. Kazmir was finally — mercifully — pulled from the game after each of the next two batters reached safely as well (Jacoby Ellsbury on an infield single, Crisp on a double into right-center field). Ellsbury scored on a Pedroia rbi-single… Crisp scored on a David Ortiz fielder’s choice (Pedroia out a second base)… and Ortiz scored on Kevin Youkilis’ 26th home run of the season.
Red Sox-11, Rays-1.
At that point, all that was left was for the fat lady to sing.
Jacoby Ellsbury homered in the fifth inning, and Kevin Youkilis doubled home another run in the sixth inning to complete the scoring for Boston.
Daisuke Matsuzaka earned his seventeenth win with five effective-but-inefficient innings (he threw 101 pitches)… he allowed one run on three hits and two walks while striking out seven Rays batters. With the win, Dice-K became the first Japanese-born pitcher to win as many as seventeen games in the US major leagues.
Rookie reliever Chris Smith, who spent the second half of the year on the Boston-Pawtucket shuttle, allowed four runs in two innings of work. Mike Timlin and David Pauley wrapped things up with one inning of hitless relief apiece.
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The Red Sox (89-61) have played two more games than Tampa Bay (88-60) thus far, having won and lost one more game than the Rays (thus, TB remains .002 points ahead of the Sox in the standings in spite of the fact that they are even in the standings).
The Red Sox are 10-4 in September… the Rays are 4-9.
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Mike Timlin made his 1,051st relief appearance — an all-time record for right-handed relievers.
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Kazmir had not allowed a home run to a left-handed batter in more than a year before Ortiz’ first-inning blast (Aubrey Huff, Baltimore; September 4, 2007).
Topics: Sox Games, Sox Players |
