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POWERFUL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM
The Sox squash the Angels
and sweep the series
April 16, 2007
...
The Sox
squashed the Angels for a third straight time, 7-2, completing a
three-game sweep of a presumed American League contender by a
cumulative score of 25-3.
Josh
Beckett, while winning for the third straight start (3-0, 1.50 ERA, 18 Ks in 18
IP), allowed just one run in six innings, on Orlando Cabrera's first-inning home
run, which is precisely the allotment of runs Beckett permitted in his first two
starts.
Beckett
received splendid assistance from shortstop Lugo. His double started the Sox'
six-run uprising in the bottom of the first off Angels starter Ervin "No Magic"
Santana, one of four doubles the Sox stroked in an inning in which they
exploited a two-base throwing error by second baseman Howie Kendrick. But it was
Lugo's two plays afield, a sprint into shallow center field to nab Casey
Kotchman's flare while on his knees in the fourth, and a terrific snatch and
throw from deep in the hole with two runners aboard in the fifth, that kept the
Angels somnambulant while evoking memories of Alex Gonzalez.
Beckett
struck out five, walked one, and was undeterred by a first-inning warning from
plate umpire Rick Reed, who was motivated to act after Beckett struck Angels
star Vladimir Guerrero on the right wrist with an 0-and-2 fastball. Guerrero,
who was the next batter after Cabrera's home run, the first in eight games by an
Angel, left the game, but X-rays were negative and the injury was described as a
soft tissue bruise.
The
Angels began the season 5-1, but now have lost six of their last seven. They
were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position, their other run coming on
Kendrick's home run in the ninth off Kyle Snyder, the fourth Sox pitcher, and
are just 13 for 80 with runners in scoring position in their last eight games.
But back
home in Japan, questions are being raised about whether the differences in the
baseballs Daisuke Matsuzaka threw in Japan and the brand used by Major League
Baseball account for the irregular appearance of the sharp slider he threw with
such effectiveness for the Seibu Lions.
Manny
Ramirez is profiled in this week's New Yorker. The author covers a lot of
familiar terrain - he recounts the story, first told by Sara Rimer in her
brilliant 1991 series on Ramirez's Washington Heights high school in the New
York Times, of Ramirez living with his parents and three sisters in an apartment
with no phone, each morning running up a hill with a tire wrapped around his
waist.
Wily Mo
Pena had a tough time in his first start, fouling to first base on the first
pitch he saw, then whiffing twice sandwiched around a walk. |
