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SWEPT AWAY BY A "RALLY MONKEY" ...
Nick Green walks one off against the Braves
June 21, 2009 ...
As Nick Green pulled around second base, the baseball having tucked
itself into the right-field corner behind the Pesky Pole, he noticed
a commotion at the plate. Amid the mist and fog and wind that turned
a Sunday in June into a day ripped from March, the player doing his
best to excise the interim tag from his position had lofted the first
pitch he saw from Jeff Bennett into the elements. He didn't know that
it had the means to get out, at least not off the bat. But the wind
was drawing it deeper, the fly ball yielding to Fenway Park's quirky
dimensions and lifting the crowd of 37,243 in celebration. It took
until second base, when Green saw his teammates gathering at home
plate, for the shortstop to fully understand what he had done.
Green's homer gave the Red Sox a 6-5 win on Father's Day.
For a while,
it looked iffy. Both teams had started off shaky in the first, with Tim
Wakefield giving up two runs, and Jair Jurrjens giving up three, and the Sox
held a two-run lead before Wakefield faltered again in the seventh.
His outing
was bolstered by another good sign from David Ortiz. On an afternoon where a
squared-up ball mostly resulted in a fly ball to the outfield, Ortiz crushed a
Jurrjens pitch in the first inning into the Monster seats. Two batters prior,
Jurrjens botched a comebacker, allowing Kevin Youkilis to reach. After Jason
Bay's sacrifice fly brought home Dustin Pedroia (leadoff double), Ortiz launched
his sixth homer of the season, all in the last 33 days.
Wakefield
started unraveling in the seventh. Garret Anderson singled to right, Martin
Prado singled to left. With two outs, Gregor Blanco singled home a run, and that
was it for Wakefield. Ramon Ramirez came on, and Nate McLouth tied it at 4 with
a single to right.
The Sox came
back in the seventh as Kottaras (double) and Drew (single) combined for a run,
stirring in some controversy. It appeared Drew might have been given an extra
strike by plate umpire Bill Hohn. Reliever Eric O'Flaherty was ejected, and so
were Cox and Chipper Jones, who continued the argument with Hohn up the third
base line.
The Sox'
lead didn't last long, though, as Jones's replacement in the lineup, Kelly
Johnson, doubled to open the eighth. Johnson came home on an Anderson single to
right, but the Braves stranded two. In the ninth, the Braves loaded the bases
against Jonathan Papelbon, but Papelbon wiggled out of the jam by getting Matt
Diaz to strike out on a pitch that was very high and outside.
Then, in the
bottom of the ninth, came Green. |
