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TIM WAKEFIELD |
A
POWERFUL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM
The Red Sox bats continue to slug it out
August 25, 2007
...
The Sox, 6 1/2 games ahead of the Yankees at the start of the day,
kept the pressure on the Bombers today with another rout of the White
Sox, the final score of 14-2 offering no hint that for the first five
innings, Wakefield and Mark Buehrle had matching one-hit shutouts.
But by the
time the game degenerated into this hideous pitching line for Ryan Bukvich - 0
IP, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 2 HBP - in an eight-run eighth inning that was
Boston's biggest of the year, this clearly was another wasted day in the life of
Ozzie Guillen.
But the way
Buehrle was pitching, no one could have foretold that the Sox would score in
double digits for the third straight game, something they hadn't done since July
3-5, 2000, in Minnesota. The Sox, who have beaten the White Sox by a combined
score of 35-6 in less than 29 hours, broke through in the sixth for four runs
against the lefthander, their preferred weapon not the long ball - they did not
go deep - but the grounder through the left side.
Mike Lowell,
Kevin Youkilis, and Bobby Kielty (who looks like he may be platooned regularly
with J.D. Drew) delivered run-scoring hits between third baseman Josh Fields and
shortstop Juan Uribe. Kielty wound up credited with two RBIs when left fielder
Andy Gonzalez failed to deliver the ball back to the infield in a timely
fashion, Lowell taking advantage of that cardinal sin to score unchallenged.
The inning
had begun with an infield hit by Dustin Pedroia and an opposite-field double by
David Ortiz. Wakefield, who did not allow a runner to third until Jermaine Dye
hit his only curveball into left field for a double and Danny Richar advanced
him with a single in the seventh, was out of the game when the Red Sox broke it
open in the eighth. Bukvich hit the first two batters he faced, Alex Cora (foot)
and Kevin Cash (elbow). Pedroia followed with an RBI double, Coco Crisp walked,
and Ortiz hit a two-run single, and the rout was on. Mike MacDougal replaced
Bukvich, threw two wild pitches, walked three, and gave up a single to Lowell
and a double to Kielty, who had four RBIs. Matt Thornton replaced him, walked
two, and threw a wild pitch.
There is
only one pitcher 40 and older in Red Sox history who has won more games in a
season than Tim Wakefield, and you have to go back a century to find him. Cy
Young won 21 games in 1907, when he was 40, and 21 again the next season.
Wakefield, who earned his 16th win yesterday afternoon, has an outside chance of
becoming one of just six pitchers to win 20 or more games in a season after
turning 40: Young, Warren Spahn (23 when he was 42, 21 when he was 40), Jamie
Moyer (21 when he was 40), Phil Niekro (21 when he was 40), and Grover Cleveland
Alexander (21 when he was 40). Spahn, Alexander, and Niekro are in the Hall of
Fame; Moyer, 44, is still pitching for the Phillies, and has a record of 11-10
this season. |
