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SWEPT AWAY BY A "RALLY MONKEY" ... August 26, 2009 ... It was his moment, the way it used to be, blasting the pitch into the seats in the right-field corner. That gave Ortiz a pair of homers, the first one taken the other way over the Green Monster, the second one pulled beyond the Pesky Pole, sending the Sox to a 3-2 win over the White Sox. With 37,839 making their own mosh pit out of the Fenway stands, the Sox were left to celebrate a game that nearly slipped through their hands. This is the type of game the Sox won earlier in the year, the type they lost after the All-Star break, the type that will be crucial for them to take going forward. These are the must-wins, when a starting pitcher takes a lead through the seventh (albeit a small one), when the offense gives just enough. But this win should have gone to Wakefield. The knuckleballer came off the disabled list yesterday, with a new catcher behind the plate, and gave the Sox more than you could possibly expect. But no sooner had Wakefield left the game after the seventh inning when things began to fall apart. He had given up just six hits and left his teammates with a 2-1 lead. But Scott Podsednik, hitting for Jayson Nix, blasted a Ramon Ramirez pitch over the wall in right-center, tying the game and erasing a win from Wakefield's ledger. Ramirez then walked Gordon Beckham, putting the tiebreaking run on base, and prompting a disgruntled reaction from the crowd. Daniel Bard, though, cooled the White Sox by getting Jim Thome to make the final out of the eighth inning. On the pitch, which left Thome swinging, Bard hit 101 on the Fenway gun. By the end of the seventh, Guillen (and the White Sox) would probably have rather faced just about anyone else than Wakefield, too. The knuckleballer was at his efficient best, throwing 17 straight strikes to begin the game. He threw 94 pitches, blowing away both the opposing batters and his teammates. It looked slightly dicey when Beckham offered a swinging bunt with one out in the first, on which Wakefield pulled up quickly and let third baseman Kevin Youkilis field the ball, though the pitcher didn't appear particularly hampered by the issues he's had with his calf. The Sox had installed some extra protection against Wakefield's potential fielding difficulties, like having Dustin Pedroia rotate to first base to get the relay from Casey Kotchman on a ground ball in the first inning. But, overall, there were hardly any problems. Wakefield was back to the form he'd demonstrated throughout his All-Star first half. Wakefield's mastery of the White Sox was the dominant theme, but there was some oddness in the bottom of the sixth. With the score tied at 1-1, it was Alex Gonzalez who broke the tie with a home run to the first row of the Monster seats. And then, four batters later, it was Ortiz attempting a bunt with runners on first and third and two outs. He popped it foul, and proceeded to strike out swinging. But he had already gotten his homer, and would get his second later to win the game, his seventh in his last 11 games. Ortiz moved past Jimmie Foxx with his ninth regular-season walk-off homer, the most in Red Sox history. Daniel Bard earned his first major league win, getting three of his four outs on strikeouts |
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