Final Score: Boston Red Sox 11, Seattle Mariners 3You know what I like? When it's a hotter than the fiery infernos of hell, with a humidity index that breaks the standard measures of disgustingly soaking, and I'm sitting in the upper bleachers in Fenway learning new meanings of the word "hot," and Manny follows up a J.D. Drew triple in the first (on his way to a double shy of the cycle) with a shot that's up, up, up over the Monster...and into a parking garage. That's the way to follow up a triple, ladies and gentlemen. That's how to get a game started and make me feel welcome back home to the heart of Red Sox country after too long an absence.
Oh, it was glorious. Helped that Wakefield pitched like a demon (if a demon could throw a knuckleball), that the Sox turned thirteen hits into eleven runs, that the Mariners looked about as lost at the plate (from what I could see anyway; everyone was pretty tiny from my perspective) as they did on the mound. Anyway, good game, good day, and in its unconventional (high scoring game in the hot sun that's somehow fun) way, an excellent time. I'd do it all over again.
In all of this enjoyment, however, this is one note of sadness: Kevin Youkilis' record-holding errorless streak is done after some 1,350 games. It happened, as these things do, on the stupidest of routine plays: ninth inning, Papelbon on the mound, a ground ball to second, a flip to first, easy out, and...Youkilis drops it. Just like that, E-3, streak over, first flaw in however many years...it's sad. Not heart-wrenching, children starving in Africa sad, or dog died when you were a kid sad, or even "we're out of beer sad," but just a passing of an era. I stood. Robin stood. Ten other people stood, and we clapped in respect. And that was it.
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