Final Score: Boston Red Sox 6, Baltimore Orioles 1[Note to anyone out there in RSS land: yes, you just saw a whole bunch of posts pop up from the past two years at the top of your reader; I went back and retagged anything mentioning Daniel Cabrera. My apologies to Dan and all of you other wonderful subscribers.]
Did anyone else think that game was one of the weirdest pitching duels they've ever seen? On one side, we had Curt Schilling: coming off a weak outing against New York, toting a lifetime ERA over 5 at Camden Yards (although one ESPN tells me has improved in the past few years), hoping to pull the Sox out of a two game slide and needing to uphold the legacy of Baltimore butt beatings Boston has built (how do ya like that alliteration) over the past couple of years. On the other side, the Storefront Indian, out to prove that the modicum of control he's developed over his first two starts is a result of Leo Mazzone tutoring and not some cosmic fluke.
Cabrera actually pitched well for the first five innings, limiting the Sox to a smattering of hits, a walk or two and a surprise home run by Alex Cora, who's quickly establishing himself as this year's successor to the crown of The Pro (he's even got a game winning hit off of Rivera. You tell me that's not significant.) He even had some nasty, nasty movement on his two-seam fastball and kept up his end of the dramatic near-miss match up playing out on the mound by stranding runners with just enough tension to keep things interesting.
Then came the sixth inning meltdown, where Cabrera's rapidly mounting pitch count started to catch up to him and his control completely disappeared. By the seventh inning it was like seeing the Cabrera we all know and love all over again.
The rest of the game was almost textbook in its simplicity: the Sox took the Orioles bullpen for a ride on the offense train, jumping all over the three relievers and pushing the score far out of reach, Schilling, Okajima and Donnelly did their part and strains of "Dirty Water" were soon floating through the minds of Sox fans everywhere. It seems like Robin was right: after a tough case of bird flu, the best cure is to make some oriole soup.
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