Games 119 - 121

Final Scores:

Game 119: Boston Red Sox 10, Chicago White Sox 1
Game 120: Boston Red Sox 10, Chicago White Sox 7
Game 121: Boston Red Sox 6, Chicago White Sox 5

Another exciting one throughout. Red Sox score early, making it 4 - 0 by the second inning. Derek Lowe managed to keep it together, despite not being completely on and having some poor Mark Bellhorn defense behind him until the 7th, when a two run homerun forced him out of the game. From there a weird situation led to 5 pitches thrown in about 10 minutes: Lowe's final pitch (leading to a commercial break), then Leskanic ended the 7th with a single pitch (another commercial break). The White Sox foolishly left starter Freddy Garcia in, even though he had thrown 117 pitches and Manny made them pay for it with a homerun, leading to Garcia's removal (commercial break number three). Then Chicago reliever Damaso Marte gave up a homerun to Ortiz and a single to Varitek before he was pulled - for the final commercial break.

In the bottom of the eighth, with a runner on first and one out, Ben Davis hit a routine fly ball to Manny off of Mike Timlin. Manny slipped on the poorly tended outfield grass and an easy out turned into runners on second and third. Timlin then managed to get the next two outs without scoring a run. I gotta say, I feel privileged to have watched that feat twice in a season - last night and Arroyo in his recent game versus Tampa Bay. The Sox have now swept their past two series, are one game up in the wildcard versus Texas and Anaheim and 5.5 back from New York, who are in a 6 out of 7 slump, in the East. Manny Ramirez had an obscene 11 RBIs over the series. Robin, who was watching the game with me yesterday, made the joke that Manny, who had scored more runs than the White Sox, was winning the series 2 - 0.

In other news, Varitek has chosen to serve his four game suspension while the Sox play three games at Toronto and their first game against the Tigers, when it is more strategic to do so. Hopefully Varitek, who is hitting .448 with a .507 OBP in the month of August will still be hot when he comes back against Detroit.

Mark Bellhorn is back from the DL, although I'm still not sure how much use he'll be - he struck out three times last night, made one error and has already struck out once tonight. He'd be a useful player if he didn't attempt to be so discerning in his pitch choices. Reese, Youkilis and McCarty are still recovering but are apparently making progress.

Tomorrow, I review Moneyball, which I finally read. GO SOX!