The Kids are Alright

It was a case of "our B team beat your A team" tonight when the Red Sox took a squad laden with prospects and bench players to Tampa to face a nearly full-strength Yankees team and came away with a 5-3 victory. It wasn't the major leaguers (Lowrie, Tek, and D-Mac) who did the bulk of the damage, though Lowrie did provide a nice double and he scored in the form of pinch-runner Oscar Tejeda. PawSox-bound Nava singled that first run home. The rest of the runs came from the bats of guys like Juan Carlos Linares, and Tejeda. Jose Iglesias was a thrill to watch in the field and he didn't do so badly at the plate either, going 2 for 3 and scoring a run. His Cuban countryman Linares was 2 for 2, having replaced Ryan Kalish in center. Oscar Tejeda (NOT Tejada) tripled, singled, and knocked in 3 runs. Infielder Drew Sutton was 2 for 3. Yamaico Navarro was quiet at the plate, but his arm at third sure came in handy. Josh Reddick robbed Cano of an extra-base hit in the 2nd.

From the mound, Buchholz threw three scoreless innings. He showed signs of fatigue in the 3rd, walking 2, but he got out of a jam when Martin lined Buch's first offering to right. He was followed by Randy Williams, who also tossed a scoreless frame despite a leadoff double by A-Rod. Brandon Duckworth pitched the 5th and 6th, allowing what was at the time the tying run on a Cano double that drove in Teixeira, who doubled before him. Matt Albers kept the Yankees at bay for 2 innings while the Sox added 4 more runs. Tony Pena, Jr, whose dad is, ironically, the Yanks' bench coach, struggled and had to be pulled with two outs in the 9th. Eammon Portice replaced him and induced a Ramiro Pena groundout that was generously scored in the Sox' favor by 1B ump Marty Foster.

I have to give the Yankees some props (yes, you read that right) for what they did for Sox 1B coach Ron Johnson, whose daughter, Bridget, lost her leg in a horseback-riding accident last summer. Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long once played for Johnson as a minor-leaguer and took up a collection for Johnson and his family after the accident. Many Yankees, including Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada wrote generous checks to the Johnsons to help cover Bridget's medical expenses. The Sox and the Yankees may be fierce rivals on the field, but off the field, they are compassionate human beings, reaching out to a family who is going through a tremendous ordeal. On the Red Sox side, Kevin Youkilis bought Bridget, whose horse died in the accident, another horse, which she named Youkie. Stories like this transcend the sport and its rivalries and remind us of the compassion and generosity that bring people together.