|
ONE LAST RUN FOR A
RED SOX LEGEND -
FROM SEASON CHAMPS TO PLAYOFF CHUMPS
The Sox win a
sloppy one in the rain
July
1, 2016 ... Steven Wright was cruising along
through five innings against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim,
holding them scoreless on six hits with the help of a couple of
double play balls that got him out of jams in the first and second
innings.
The Sox
offense had given him five runs to work with, so
even when sky started to open up in the sixth, John
Farrell kept him in, but had Matt Barnes warming
up, just in case. The harder the rain fell, the
more things started to slip away from Wright.
Without a
knuckleball he could count on, Wright leaned on his fastball. But in the first
at-bat of the inning, Albert Pujols took one of his heaters and smacked it off
the Wall for a double.
When
Wright grazed Jeffrey Marte's jersey with another fastball, Farrell immediately
got on the phone to the bullpen to check on Barnes and pitching coach Carl
Willis was walking out to the mound to talk things over. The plan Willis went
over with Wright was to stick with the knuckleball, but after Wright walked
Daniel Nava to load the bases, he said instincts took over. He fed C.J. Cron a
3-and-2 fastball and Cron blasted into the Monster seats for a grand slam and as
he took his misty lap around the bases, Farrell came out from the Sox dugout to
take the ball from Wright.
The rest
of the Red Sox' 5-4 win was a tightrope walk in the rain.
Barnes got
the Sox out of the inning, and the tarp came out right after. The Sox waited out
a 1 hour, 35-minute delay and, even though the rain short-circuited his
knuckleball, Wright still came away with his ninth win of the season.
Matt
Barnes, Junichi Tazawa, Koji Uehara and Craig Kimbrel combined to throw four
shutout innings to preserve the win, but they had to dodge bullets to do it.
The
closest call came in the ninth inning. Kimbrel started the inning by walking
Mike Trout. He then got Albert Pujols to fly out to center and Marte to pop up
to second. But just as it looked like he would slam the door, Daniel Nava laced
a 1-and-0 fastball into the right field corner. Trout wheeled around from first,
looking like he would coast in for the tying run as the ball bounced along the
short fence, but a young fan stuck his arm out to snag the ball, stopping him in
his tracks at third and holding Nava at second. The play was reviewed for fan
interference, but umpires upheld the call as a ground-rule double. The next
at-bat, Kimbrel got Cron to bounce out to third to end the game.
The Sox
picked up a much-needed win after going 2-4 on their six-game road swing through
Texas and Tampa Bay.
Betts went
3 for 4 with a run scored, giving him a major-league leading 34 multi-hit games
this season. Brock Holt, anxious to get back on the field after missing 37 games
due to a mild concussion, made up for lost time by going 2 for 4 with an RBI
double and two runs scored. David Ortiz went 3 for 4 with a solo homer in the
sixth, moving him past Ted Williams, Frank Thomas and Willie McCovey for 19th on
baseball's all-time home run list and also giving him 2,000 career hits in a Red
Sox uniform. |
