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THE "IDIOTS" REVERSE THE CURSE
Timely hitting gives the Red Sox a fine win
August 10, 2004 ... The Sox staged the type of two-out rally that made most everyone go home feeling
they contributed to an 8-4 win over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In front of a crowd of 35,191, the 53d straight sellout this season, the Sox won for the first time at home since the July 31 trade that sent Garciaparra to the Cubs.
The Sox, who went 12 up and 12 down through the first four innings against converted reliever Jorge Sosa, struck for three runs in the fifth in a rally touched off by David Ortiz's single, the first of four hits in the inning, plus an RBI ground out by the heir to the Garciaparra position
(if not his fortune), Orlando Cabrera.
The Sox put up a five-spot in the sixth touched off once again by Ortiz, who lined a two-out single to right. Kevin Millar walked, and Jason Varitek, whose double the
previous inning had knocked in Boston's first run, lined a single to right to break a 3-3 tie. Cabrera, who entered the game batting .206 (7 for 34) in his American League incarnation, floated a single to left to score Millar, making it 5-3 and knocking out Sosa. Bill Mueller blooped a
run-scoring single off reliever Bobby Seay to make it 6-3, and Kevin Youkilis added a two-run double high off the wall to make it 8-3.
That was a sufficient cushion for Bronson Arroyo, who last week was stunned by Toby Hall's grand slam in a 5-4 loss at Tampa but went 6 2/3 innings for his fifth win against eight losses and just his second win in nine starts at Fenway Park.
Mike Myers, the lefthanded reliever acquired in a waiver deal last Friday from Seattle, made his Fenway Park debut an impressive one, as much by his whiff of Aubrey Huff to end the seventh as his choice of the music that accompanied him as he jogged in from the bullpen. It was the theme from
the slasher flick, "Halloween," whose masked killer was a character named Michael Myers.
The Sox won easily even though the first three batters in the order - Johnny Damon, Doug Mientkiewicz, and Manny Ramirez (declaring an end to his three-day bout with the flu) - combined to go 0 for 12. Ortiz, after a rare 0 for 4 Monday night in which he failed to get the ball out of the
infield, reached base three times on two singles and a hit by pitch.
Sox pitchers, after giving up 11 home runs in the previous two games, kept the ball on the premises last night. Arroyo did a nice job of cutting off the Devil Ray rally in the sixth, stranding Baldelli at third by striking out Tino Martinez and retiring Robert Fick and Hall on fly balls.
Arroyo also escaped a first-and-third, two-out speck of trouble in the first by retiring Martinez on a popup. |
