Window-Smashin' Good!

The game started out with an injury scare (Buchholz getting spiked by Maicer Izturis on a play at first) and a robbed home run (Torii Hunter snatched a dinger from Beltre as he made a webgem catch leaning into the bullpen) for the Red Sox, but trouble and frustration would soon be replaced with tons of fun--and a half-dozen runs--at the Halos' expense.

Buchholz shook off the spiked leg (or was it his foot) and pitched 7 shutout innings. He was "effectively wild" with a lot of pitches missing the strike zone, but he made the pitches he needed to make to get out of trouble and keep the Angels off the board. The stranded runners made for a frustrating night for the SoCal squad. It's a situation the Red Sox have found themselves in more often than they'd like to remember this season.

However, tonight the Sox made the most of their scoring opportunities. In the 3rd inning, Darnell McDonald hit a blast so hard it sailed over the Monster, out of Fenway, and into a car in the parking lot, smashing the rear windshield. The next inning, the sacks were loaded for Ryan Kalish whose homer into the bullpen would not be robbed by Torii Hunter. Grand salami for the impressive rookie for his second major-league dinger. Then in the fifth, back-to-back doubles by Papi and V-Mart tacked one more run onto the Sox lead.

Not to be forgotten on a night where Buchholz and Kalish shined the brightest was Pedey's return to the lineup. The laser show is still a work-in-progress as the sparkplug second baseman needs some more at-bats to get his timing back, but he made a nice play in the 2nd to tag Matsui then throw the ball to first for a twin killing. He was charged with a hard-luck error later in the game when a sliding Napoli had him airborne as he threw the ball off-target to Lowell. Lowell missed it and it went into the dugout. Bobby Wilson was awarded second base.

I'll be on vaykay from tomorrow until next Monday night, so no blogs for a few days. Since I won't have NESN in South Carolina, I'll have to keep track of the Sox online. This homestand is where the Sox need to make hay and hope the Yanks and Rays lose some games. After the Angels leave town, Toronto and Seattle come in. The Sox have done well so far against Toronto and Seattle has an abysmal road record, so you have to hope for, at the very least, a 7-2 homestand.

LET'S GO RED SOX!!! CONGRATS TO KALISH ON HIS FIRST CAREER GRANNY!!!