As
the once bright pennant hopes slowly fade away, the team still
manages to put on individual performances worthy of respect.
Last
night Clay Buchholz (14-5, 2.36 ERA) continued his march toward the
Cy Young award with 7 innings of shut-out ball, scattering 8
base-runners in the process. His counterpart, AL Strikeout leader
Jared Weaver (11-8, 3.11 ERA) matched him for 3 innings.
The
Sox struck first when Darnell McDonald (once again taking over for
the re-injured Jacoby Ellsbury) belted his 8th homer of the year. In
the 4th inning the Sox blew the game wide open with David Ortiz
lighting the fuse by hitting a single. After Victor Martinex and
Adrian Beltre whiffed, JD Drew and Mike Lowell drew back to back
walks. Jared Weaver tried to fool Ryan Kalish with a pitch but Kalish
wasn't fooling around, swatting his first career grand slam (2nd
homer of the year) to pretty much put the game away.
As
the offense exploded, Buchholz kept his cool...pitching one solid
inning after another on his way to a 113 pitch masterpiece with 3
strikeouts. The only offense left in the game was in the bottom of
the 5th when David Ortiz doubled and was driven in by Victor Martinez
who also doubled.
Weaver
was finished after 5, and his replacement Trevor Bell worked 3 shut
out innings in relief. When Buchholz was finished, rookie Felix
Doubront came on in relief. Doubront managed to load the bases but
struck out Erik Aybar to end the inning and keep the shut out.
Another Boston draftee Michael Bowden mopped up with a clean 9th to
end the game.
Both
the Yankees and the Rays won, keeping the Sox 5.5 games behind any
sort of chance in the post-season. The margin for error is dwindling
fast and a small losing streak may well end their hopes once and for
all.
Clay
Buchholz is now in a fight with New York's CC Sabbathia (16-5, 3.12
ERA), Tampa Bay's David Price (15-5, 2.85 ERA) and surprise entrant
Oakland's Trevor Cahill (12-5, 2.50 ERA) for the Cy Young. If Clay
keeps his current hot streak going, even if the Sox don't bring home
the World Series trophy....you can make a bet that Buchholz will be
taking home the Cy Young hardware.
John
Lackey (10-7, 4.54 ERA) goes up against Scott Kazmir in tonight's
game.
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