Final Score: Boston Red Sox 6, Texas Rangers 5If there's one single best thing about the 2007 Red Sox, it's the unexpected contributions that keep rolling in from all sides, dropping much-appreciated bits of change into the Red Sox win basket. Take yesterday: two fun bits of flash - stuff you wouldn't expect to win ballgames, but that was fun to watch - all of the sudden make the difference between 34 and 15 and 33 and 16, between a sweep and two-out-of-three. Damn, I love this team. For your inspection:
Item 1: Bottom of the seventh, two outs, runners on first and second, Texas up 4 to 3 and Frank Catalanotto hits a ball off of J.C. Romero that sped through the air towards the gap in right center. Crap. That's two runs right there, possibly the game - but wait! Coco Crisp is speeding towards the intercept point! How is he so fast? Is he going to make it? Yes! Diving catch! Inning over! The one-run difference is preserved, setting the stage for an eighth inning, two-run rally spearheaded by Kevin "The Man" Youkilis.
Item 2: Top of the ninth, first batter: Dustin Pedroia. He's facing the little-used Eric Gagne, sporting a perfect ERA over about nine innings. No disrespect to the P-Dawg, but I'm not expecting much to happen in this at-bat. Besides, the Sox are up by a run and we've got the Red Scare on the case - no sweat if the Sox don't score some insurance. What does Pedroia do? He battles like a fiend. Twelve pitches, six fouls in a row and then...damn, dude hit a home run into left field. That was cool. Superfluous right now, but it's nice to see the P-Dawg succeed.
Of course, the next inning Okajima lets in a run - dude's slipping a bit lately, but that's cool - before getting the final three outs and all of the sudden, those two actions made all of the difference. And that's why I love this team.
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