Games 138 - 142

Final Scores:

Game 138: Boston Red Sox 8, Oakland Athletics 3
Game 139: Boston Red Sox 1, Seattle Mariners 7
Game 140: Boston Red Sox 13, Seattle Mariners 2
Game 141: Boston Red Sox 9, Seattle Mariners 0
Game 142: Boston Red Sox 0, Seattle Mariners 2

Up and down and up and down again. Hudson proved to be as much of a push-over for the Sox as Zito and Redman had been and indeed, the only real moments of excitement were courtesy, once again, of the bullpen. The next night was apparently the equivalent of a rest night, except the Sox happened to be playing at the time. Wakefield’s in another slump again, but he wasn’t helped by five unearned runs and a weak offensive effort. I was at the first Patriots game for that one, so I had plenty of New England sports happiness for the evening, but clearly the boys were not in the game. Friday night was redemption, as Schilling took the mound and shut the Mariners down (win number nineteen) while the offensive exploded once again. Arroyo put out another stellar effort on Saturday night and the offense continued to pound away at Seattle pitching, this time taking Jamie Moyer down for the count.

Today, however, the Sox were once again shut down, this time by young veteran Gil Meche. Meche held the Sox to no runs on x hits over a complete game, throwing 129 pitches. The Sox had a chance to score in the first, when Damon was on third and Manny was on second – a line drive to Ichiro by Varitek on one out would have scored Damon, but Manny was somehow confused on the play and ended up being doubled off second before Damon could cross the plate. I suppose it’s possible that the Sox could have worked more out of Meche in that first inning, before he settled down for the rest of the game, but clearly the Sox were, once again, the beneficiaries of an excellent performance by an opposing pitcher. At the moment I can think of four times so far this season when the Sox lost because the other guy’s starter had an excellent night – I wonder if there’s a statistic on that somewhere that might prove that the Red Sox are not recipients of some extraordinary bad luck.

Scott Williamson has been activated off the DL and pitched against Seattle in the ninth on Friday, where he pitched one inning with one strikeout and one walk. Ellis Burks is hoping to come back on Friday against the Yankees. Doug Mientkiewicz missed Sunday’s game with something equivalent to a flu bug and David Ortiz was out with a sore shoulder, but presumably they will both be back on Tuesday against Tampa Bay. GO SOX!