Wednesday, September 12, 2007

DAVID ORTIZ 5, TAMP DEVIL RAYS 4

His shoulder aches and his knees hurt, but theres nothing wrong with David Ortiz's bat. Big Papi hit two homers, including a two run walk-off homer in the ninth off of Rays closer Al Reyes, to account for all five runs the Sox scored.

The Rays held the lead up until the last batter after scoring four runs in the first inning off of Sox starter Jon Lester. Lester settled down a bit after that, but didn't make it through the fourth. He gave up four runs on eight hits and walked four. He also had five strikeouts.

With Ortiz supplying the offense, the Sox pen got it done on the mound. His Craziness, Julian Tavarez took over for Lester with runners on first and third and got the last out to strand them. Tavarez went on to throw 3.0 innings of no-hit ball and left to a well deserved standing ovation from the Fenway crowd. Tavarez was followed by Delcarmen (1 inning, 1 hit), Okajima (K'd the only batter he faced), and Papelbon (1-2-3 top of the ninth).

While the only runs came on Papi homers, the Sox didn't lack for scoring opportunities. They left the bases loaded in the second, and left two runners on twice more, but failed to score each time.

AL East: The win not only keeps the Sox lead over NY (beat Toronto) at 5.0 games, but it keeps their lead for the best record in the AL over LA (beat Baltimore) at 2.0 games.

Tomorrow (Thursday): The Red Sox are off tomorrow. They begin a three game series with the Yankees in Boston on Friday. The match-ups for the Yankees series will be as follows:

Friday: Daisuke Matsuzaka v. Andy Pettitte
Saturday: Chien-Ming Wang v. Josh Beckett
Sunday: Roger Clemens v. Curt Schilling

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