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THE "IDIOTS" REVERSE THE CURSE
Pedro and the bullpen let the Rays in
September 13, 2004 ... No game
scheduled
September 14, 2004 ... Scott Kazmir outpitched
Pedro Martinez, who gave up home runs to a couple of other precocious kids, Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli, in a 5-2 Tampa Bay win that dropped the Sox four games behind the Yankees in the AL East with 19 to play.
The Sox, who trailed, 5-0, until Trot Nixon hit his first regular- season pinch-hit home run in the eighth off reliever Travis Harper with a man on, are fretting that they may have suffered a more significant loss: Third baseman Bill Mueller, who apparently re-injured his right knee over the
weekend in Seattle, left last night's game in the fifth inning and was scheduled to undergo an MRI today, according to team doctor Bill Morgan. Mueller had grounded into a first-to-home double play with the bases loaded to end the second inning, the Sox' best chance to score against Kazmir,
who held the Sox to three hits while striking out nine in six innings. That was a bewildering development for the sellout crowd of 35,118 in Fenway Park, where winning has practically become a given. The Sox had won 12 of their last 13 games on Yawkey Way and had not lost back-to-back games
anywhere in more than a month (Aug. 4 and 6).
Five walks, one short of his career high, led to Martinez's departure after a 113-pitch yield in six innings. Crawford led off the game, and ended Martinez's 16-inning scoreless streak, by driving the second pitch, an 86 mile-per-hour fastball, into the Monster seats. Baldelli, the
second-year man from Rhode Island, duplicated that feat in the third, jumping on a curveball that lingered over the plate.
Francona emptied his bullpen in an attempt to keep the Sox close, using six relievers, but the D-Rays tacked on a pair of runs in the seventh against Alan Embree and Mike Timlin (both charged to Embree) and another in the eighth off Ramiro Mendoza. The Sox brought the tying run to the plate
in the ninth against D-Rays closer Danys Baez when Jason Varitek was hit by a pitch and Millar walked with two out, but Orlando Cabrera lined to left to end it.
Millar, who had two of Boston's three hits off Kazmir, also was picked off second base after his leadoff double in the fifth. Kazmir whiffed five straight batters between the third and fourth inning, and whiffed Mark Bellhorn three times, Bellhorn ending a miserable night by taking a called
third strike from Harper in the eighth. |
