A Shutout, A Walk-Off, and Let's Forget Friday's Game Happened

Sox: 2 Braves: 8
Sox: 3: Braves: 0
Sox: 6 Braves: 5

It started out on a sour note with Friday's trainwreck of a game, but ended up with walk-off dinger by a guy I had never even heard of before Spring Training of this year. Yes, Nick Green, he with the "bazooka for an arm" (per Mike Lowell) took the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth inning by Braves reliever Jeff Bennett around the Pesky pole in right to break a 5-all tie after another oh-so-adventurous top of the ninth from Paps.

The game started with Wake making a bid for his tenth win, but missing out on the decision when Ramon Ramirez allowed one of Wake's inherited runners to score, tying the game. Big Papi knocked his sixth long ball of the season in the bottom of the first, after the Braves had touched Wake for two runs in the top of the inning. Bay's sac fly, scoring Pedey, who led off with a double and moved over to third when Youk reached on an error accounted for the first Sox run and Papi's homer gave the Sox a 3-2 lead at the time. A fourth run was added on a Kottaras sac fly in the fourth inning. The game is tied in the seventh, when Wake allows one run and Ramirez paints another one on him. Then, JD Drew knocks in the go-ahead run after a heavily contested third strike gets called as a ball. This missed call (Amica pitch zone did have it as a strike) gets feathers ruffled both on the mound and in the dugout and the pitcher, lefty reliever Eric O'Flaherty, along with manager Bobby Cox and Chipper Jones get the old heave-ho from the home plate ump. In the eighth, however, the Braves tie it up again when Oki gets a little less dokey than usual and allows a couple of hits.

Last night's game was a real treat for Sox fans, both for the return of '04 postseason hero Derek Lowe, and a complete game shutout for ace Josh Beckett, who put last Sunday's clunker in Philly behind him and picked up right where he left off. D-Lowe was strong in his return to Fenway, but he was out-dueled by Beckett for the fifth complete game for Sox pitchers this season and his third career regular season shutout (first in a Sox uni). The offense, who had been in screensaver mode on Thursday and Friday, started to wake up in this game and that continued into today.

Next stop: Washington, DC, where the Sox play the Nats on Tuesday through Thursday. Smoltz makes his Red Sox debut in the final game of the series and that should be interesting to see. Dice has been DL-ed with shoulder weakness, so there's room in the rotation for "Smoltzy" if he can be effective. He is a future Hall of Famer and has been remarkably consistent over the years, but he is getting "up there" in baseball years and coming back from major shoulder surgery, so the jury's still out and if it doesn't work out, Buchholz is just itching to come back to the big club. Pitching depth is our friend, folks!

LET'S GO RED SOX!!!!