Sox silence Tribe

(originally posted 7/25/07)

The Red Sox only managed one run on Tuesday night. But, with their pitching, who needs more than a single run? Daisuke Matsuzaka escaped some early wildness, pitching seven scoreless frames. To agent Scott Boras' delight, Dice-K threw only 98 pitches. To my delight, he provided one of my fantasy baseball teams (the third place Burninating Ostriches) with an ERA/WHIP-reducing W. He's definitely worth every yen. (At least he was Tuesday. His last few starts, not so much.)

Jonathan (Cincho-Ocho) Papelbon struck out two in the 9th, for his 23rd save. But that wasn't the only Papelbonian highlight of the night. The other highlight was his pre-game interview with Tina Cervasio, during which he spoke of his love of PB&J, as well as his quest to kill a moose. (A worthy goal, that.) But my favorite part was, when asked to name the opponent (non-wild animal category) who has the most success against him, he named journeyman OF Frank Catalanotto. This seemed strange, so I ventured over to baseballreference.com to check who had the best lifetime stats against Jonathan Robert. I went down the list of statistical profiles, without looking at who they belonged to, and found one batter with a .556 avg., in nine AB. Sure enough, it was Frank Catalanotto.

The Sox flashed some leather to protect their lead, with Youkilis, Lowell, and Wily Mo Pena all coming up with big plays in the field. 2B Dustin Pedroia, playing at Manny Ramirez-depth in RF (pre-Manny's chat on defensive positioning with Terry Francona), made a nifty play to retire Indians slugger Travis Hafner. I was concerned that the Sox defense would flounder without Batshit Tavarez out there giving direction, but it appears they are doing fine without him. For now. (Small sample size, folk(s).)

While the Sox only scored one run (against Indians ace C. C. Sabathia), their should be no concerns about their offense. Not with Dave Magadan as hitting coach. I saw a clip of Magadan smashing a playoff-winning hit for the Mariners against the Twins the other day, demonstrating the clutch-hitting that he has brought to the Sox. When anyone remembers that particular game, they always remember Griffey Jr's game-saving catch. Or the 12 yr. old managing the Twins. Or the Twins slugger who proposed to the 12 yr. old Manager's Mom after the game. But, for my yen, Magadan was the story of that memorable piece of baseball history.

The Sox send Josh Beckett to the mound tonight, facing the Indians' Fausto Carmona. Carmona has been lights-out this season, but the Sox own him. He probably still has nightmares about the Sox' beatings of him last season. Besides, Tom Caron remembered to thank Tina Cervasio AND Amalie Benjamin after their segment during the pre-game. And the Sox are undefeated in Beckett starts this season, when Caron thanks both Cervasio and Benjamin in the pre-game show. All signs point to the Sox' sixth win in a row.