Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 26, 2008
One Mistake

Clay Buchholz pitched his best game since the no-hitter. Through seven innings he allowed one hit, striking out seven. He needed to pitch that well, as the Red Sox were clinging to a 1-0 lead. Jackson pitched seven good innings, and the bullpen held the Red Sox scoreless in the eighth.

In the eighth, however, Navarro picked up a pinch single, and then with two out, Iwamura came to the plate. In his previous plate appearance, Iwamura was called out on a very short check swing. He got his revenge, however, launching a ball into the seats down the rightfield line for a two run homer and a 2-1 Rays lead. A great game by Clay, but he needs a ninth inning rally if he's going to get a win.

Update: Percival retires the Red Sox in order in the ninth, and the Rays win 2-1. They now trail the Red Sox by one game. This may turn out to be one of the most important series in Rays Tampa Bay history.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:46 PM | Games | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Don't look now, but the team with the best run diff in the AL East is...the Tampa Bay Rays. Okay, it's an underwhelming +14, but nobody in the suddenly parity-prone AL is racking up an overpowering run diff.

The result is that nobody in the AL has been buried in the standings...except the Texas Rangers, who should be relegated (English soccer style) to Triple-A.

Maybe Double-A. I just got back from the ballpark in Arlington. After a respectable five innings from Sidney Ponson (!?) the Rangers were leading 5-2. The defense and bullpen then collapsed in an obscene mess, yielding ten unanswered runs.

The wreckage of Tom Hicks, Jon Daniels and Ron Washington ended up losing 12-6. But Texas has a stocked minor league system! By 2011 the team could get back to .500. Honest.

Posted by: Casey Abell at April 27, 2008 01:04 AM

A little unclear why Tito didn't go to Okajima with Iwamura and Crawford coming up - Bucholz wasn't pitching the 9th with a 1 run lead anyway.

Posted by: Bandit at April 27, 2008 12:50 PM
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