Boston Red Sox 11, Florida Marlins 5
We had some big bats last night. Huge in fact. Manny’s 2000th hit was a homer (one of 2), Ortiz went deep twice (almost 3 times) and Lowell had three signature doubles (he leads the league again with 29). The pitching was fine (a good outing by Wake) and the Sox struck early and often to squish the fish.
But the real story is about what happened in the first inning. It’s something that hasn’t happened in the last 17 games.
Somebody messed up.
That’s right, the streak is over. Mirabelli tried to throw out Hanley Ramirez (trying to steal second) and the ball skipped over Cora and into the outfield. Error, mistake, blunder.
Then in the same inning the almost flawless shortstop, Alex Gonzalez tried to make a force at second from a tough grab in the hole. He threw it away from Cora too. Whoops, damn, yikes.
That inning aside, this is still far and away the best defensive team I have ever seen. It’s probably the best in my LIFETIME. The entire infield is playing gold-glove caliber baseball. They make the hard plays easy and make them nearly 100% of them. Seeing Derek Jeter (or Nomar for that matter) making amazing acrobatic throws (because they just barely got to a ground ball) is exciting… but it doesn’t compare to a shortstop that gets to every ball and has a simple throw to make the out. Gonzo has just been fantastic.
Today is the rubber game with Florida. Lester vs the Marlins top pitching rookie Josh Johnson. Let’s put another 10 spot on him (and try not to make any more errors).
GO SOX
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