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POKEY REESE |
THE "IDIOTS" REVERSE THE CURSE
The
Sox fall to the Twins at Fenway
June 23, 2004 ... Tonight,
after rolling on his glove hand while diving for a ground ball during Boston's 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Twins, Reese sustained what Red Sox team doctor Bill Morgan termed a "partial tear" of the ligament in his thumb, but Morgan listed Reese as day to day and described a best-case scenario in which Reese would return by the
weekend.
Morgan, saying he would be "surprised if he missed a week," gave that upbeat prognosis while acknowledging that the injury was in the same place in which Reese tore the ligament last season, while stealing second base. On that occasion, he did have surgery.
Reese, who was injured in the top of the second inning while smothering Luis Rivas's infield hit up the middle, fielded the last out of the second inning before retreating to the dugout runway in pain. He underwent X-rays at the ballpark that were negative, then was taken to St. Elizabeth's
Medical Center in Brighton, where an MRI showed the partial tear of the ligament on the inside of his thumb. He was back in the clubhouse after the game, and said he tore the ligament in his right thumb on the same play six years ago.
Reese's injury overshadowed Sox efforts to recover from a four-run deficit in the middle game of a three-game set against the leaders of the American League Central. The Sox, shut out on four singles through the first five innings by righthander Carlos Silva, led off each of the next two
innings with home runs. Mark Bellhorn cranked his eighth of the season to open the sixth, and Nixon, who had a home run taken away the night before by Twins right fielder Jacque Jones, deposited a ball out of Jones's reach in the Sox pen, his third home run since his return from the injuries
that had sidelined him all spring.
But that was all the offense the Sox, who did not cash in on subsequent doubles by Varitek (in the seventh) and Garciaparra (leading off the ninth), could muster. That was not enough to overcome the little ball-big fly combination that did in Derek Lowe, who in seven innings recorded 21 outs
on either ground balls (14) or strikeouts (7), easily the most whiffs he has had this season (previous high: four).
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KEVIN YOUKILIS |
Kevin Youkilis, who replaced Reese in the top of the third innings and had a single in three trips, appeared increasingly likely to be odd man out while manager Terry Francona tried to rotate four players (Mark Bellhorn, Nomar Garciaparra, Reese, and Youkilis) in three positions.
Bill Mueller is expected back around the All-Star back. Francona said Mueller will accompany the team to New York next week as he recuperates from arthroscopic surgery on his right knee, with the possibility that he will go out on a rehab assignment over the Fourth of July weekend,
when the Sox are in Atlanta. |
