A Win for Mom

Sox: 4 K'ed Rays: 3

Happy Mother's Day, Red Sox Nation! The Sox gave their mommas reason to smile today with a 3-4 squeaker win over their latest nemesis, the Tampa Bay Rays. The man on the mound, Darth Vader himself, Matt Garza, was still a tough nut to crack, but not untouchable. He gave up three runs over seven innings. Beckett turned in his second quality outing in a row, touched for three runs over six innings. Nothing spectacular, but an improvement over the last time he faced the Rays, at their home dome where he had his third-inning meltdown reminiscent of Lester's fifth inning debacle yesterday.

Winning a series against the Rays has been a challenging feat since the middle of last season. Beginning last July, they had lost every season series they played against this pesky young team until tonight. The Sox worked their at-bats against Garza, made him throw more pitches, and the results showed up on the scoreboard. Timely hits by Drew, Tek, Green, and King of Clutch J-Bay are all that's needed to push the Sox ahead of the young upstarts. Green, however, ran into outs not once, but twice trying to stretch a single into a double. Perhaps he needs first base coach Tim Bogar to hold up a stop sign to keep him from attempting ill-advised non-stop flights to second. If the ball bounces hard off the wall or goes into the shallow part of the outfield, you may want to pull in to first for a layover.

The only bad thing to come out of tonight's victory is the groin injury to Pedey. With Youk already out for five games and his status for the road trip in question, losing Pedey for anything more than a game or two is gonna hurt, both defensively and offensively. Let's hope it's short-term because we need our Pedey!

LET'S GO RED SOX!!!! CONGRATS ON BEATING THE RAYS!!