Final Score: Boston Red Sox 5, Tampa Bay Devil Rays 4Run for the hills!!! Big Papi is back with a vengeance. Screw the rest of the hitters, he’ll score ALL YOUR RUNS! The 2 homers and 5 RBI (including the amazing walk-off that exploded my clothes off my body) meant that Papi ate his morning Wheaties and they had Devil Ray blood in them. And the city of Boston? It’s a crazy love-fest for Ortiz here. More than I ever realized was possible. If he ran for mayor tomorrow it would go:
“Hey, my name is Big Papi and I don’t speak English too good and I don’t know a lot about public works or anything like that… but I’m running for mayor and… ummm I hit a ton of homeruns?”
(cue the stampede caused by every citizen running out to vote for Ortiz. Hell I’d vote twice.)
Now THANK FREAKING GOD that he did the whole heroic thing today, cause this game pretty much SUCKED otherwise. Lester spotted the Rays 4 runs in the first inning and I was calling for the guy’s head right there. He could not throw a strike to save his life. I was climbing the walls and I am still shocked that the Rays only managed to score so FEW runs. Lester was out of there in a hurry… and Tavarez stepped in to put out the fire.
And he really did it! Yeah it’s amazing. Tavarez shut down the Tampa bats for 3 innings and made me smile at his normal scary faced chicanery. Is that blood on your cleat? Oh Julian you big joker!
Meanwhile, besides the Man Mountain that is Ortiz, the rest of the Sox could not get it done with men on base… again. Francona needs to start asking players for 10 pushups for every man they leave on base. Tek and Hinske would be doing 100 between the two of them. It was so ugly that once Papelbon came in and shut the door on the Rays in the 9th, I had pretty much chalked this one up as a loss. I’m such a quitter.
But when Lugo reached… and I saw Papi waiting there with that tree trunk of a bat that he made out of redwood he chopped down with his bare hands… it made me believe again. I KNEW he would do it. He has that look in his eye that we saw in the 2004 playoffs. The look that says:
“Nothing’s over until I say so… and you better vote twice.”
So now I feel ready for New York. Bring on the Yankees because the confidence is back, the swagger is back and no matter HOW far up we are, these games always bring out my venom and hate. You can’t teach a hammer to love nails. That dog won’t hunt.
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