HR #33

A SAD END TO A RECORD SEASON
The Sox bomb the Mariners
with 5 HRs

July 21, 2006 ... By virtue of making three starts this season, Kyle Snyder is a longtime member of the Red Sox family. When you're reduced to having to treat newcomers like Snyder as old-timers, the best way to keep winning is to obliterate whomever happens to be standing on the hill for the other club. That's precisely what the Sox did to 43-year-old Jamie Moyer, mashing five home runs by five players en route to an 9-4 victory over the Seattle Mariners before a sellout crowd of 46,025 in an unseasonably steamy Safeco Field.

David Ortiz (No. 33), Alex Gonzalez (No. 7), Jason Varitek (No. 10), Kevin Youkilis (No. 11) and Manny Ramirez (No. 26) connected off Moyer, the former Sox who in 505 career starts had never been subjected to the kind of beating administered by the Sox. Ortiz is the major league leader in home runs, while Ramirez is an old tormentor. Ramirez has 10 home runs off the Mariner mushballer, two more than he has against any other pitcher. The five home runs were the most by the Sox in a game this season; they'd hit four in a game five times the last time at Tampa Bay July 6 and all six games of four or more home runs have come on the road.

The Sox hit just four home runs in their previous seven games, and had not hit more than one in their last 10 games before leaving the yard early and often in Safeco, where the game-time temperature (89 degrees) was more like Houston than the Pacific Northwest.

For his part, Snyder last night did not resemble a guy burdened with a 7.45 ERA in his previous exercises for the Sox (10.03 ERA if you count his one start for Kansas City), including an 8-1 beating to the Athletics last Sunday in Boston. Snyder held the Mariners, who were coming off a trip in which they lost two of three to each of Boston's closest pursuers in the AL East, the Blue Jays and Yankees, without a run until the fifth, when errors by Youkilis, who played third last night, and center fielder Coco Crisp led to a couple of unearned runs.

But the 6-foot-8-inch Snyder still managed to throw a scare into the Sox at the start of the sixth, when he threw a couple of warm-ups and trainer Paul Lessard and Francona saw something to cause them to jog to the mound. Snyder was lifted, but the injury is minor, especially for a guy with a history of recurring elbow and shoulder problems: a muscle cramp in his right calf.

The rookie, Craig Hansen replaced Snyder and breezed through a 1-2-3 sixth. But Hansen gave up three consecutive hits to start the seventh, leading to a couple of runs, allowing the M's to draw within 8-4. Youkilis started an around-the-horn double play to temper the uprising, but when Adrian Beltre bounced a single through the left side, Francona went to another rook, Manny Delcarmen, for whom this late-inning stuff is becoming routine. Delcarmen retired Raul Ibanez on a fly to Gabe Kapler in left (Ramirez was serving as DH). The right-hander then worked a scoreless eighth.

Ortiz was the first to go deep, hitting a two-out home run in the first. Ortiz's five home runs off the left-handed Moyer are the most he's hit off any pitcher, matching the five he's hit off Toronto ace Roy Halladay.

Moyer fumbled Kapler's comebacker for an error to open the third, which Gonzalez followed with a drive off the left-field scoreboard to make it 3-0. Varitek led off the fourth with his home run, also to left, continuing the oddity of hitting home runs only on the road. His last eight home runs, since a grand slam May 7 against Baltimore, have come away from the Fens.

Gonzalez opened the fifth with a four-pitch walk and Youkilis, who was in a .162 slump (6 for 37), pulled a 1-and-0 pitch into the seats to make it 6-0. One out later, Moyer walked Ortiz, a prelude to Ramirez's blast into the left-field seats. Moyer, who has made a living on guile and changing speeds, fooled few Sox hitters, regardless of where he set the dial.

The Sox padded their lead in the ninth off wild reliever Emiliano Fruto (three walks and a wild pitch in 1 1/3 innings), Crisp delivering an RBI single (breaking a 0-for-15 slump) to left that scored Ramirez, making it 9-4.

With Lowell still ailing, Francona installed David Ortiz at first base, moved Kevin Youkilis to third, put Gabe Kapler in left field against lefty Jamie Moyer, and had Manny Ramirez serve as DH.