Sinking the Sox

It was a Lonestar letdown for the AL East’s third place team Friday in Arlington. Texas topped the visiting Red Sox 10-9 in 11 innings on Nelson Cruz’s leadoff homerun off Tim Wakefield. The Boston knuckleballer had his first pitch crushed into the seats to suffer his third loss of the season. The Red Sox bullpen folded in relief of Josh Beckett, who allowed six runs in five innings. Still, Boston staked to an 8-2 advantage thanks to a seven run fourth inning to lead 8-2. Boston crumbled through the next five frames, allowing Texas to tie the game in the eighth inning. The Rangers went on to win the game to prevent the Sox from gaining any ground on the second place Rays. Both Texas and Boston have 66 wins, but the Rangers hold a sizeable division lead in the West, while Boston trails two teams for the East lead.
Cruz collected a pair of RBI’s for Texas, including a first inning infield single to drive in the Rangers’ first tally. Josh Hamilton scored the first run and was the offensive and defensive star for the home team. Hamilton went 4-for-5 at the dish and scored four runs while making three great outfield snags. Hamilton robbed Jed Lowrie of a possible homerun in the seventh before scoring the tying run in the eighth following his extra-base hit. Hamilton raised his major league leading batting average to .362.
Leadoff man, Elvis Andrus, gave the Rangers a 2-0 cushion in the second by driving in his 30th run of the year. Boston answered in the next inning off Texas starter, Tommy Hunter. Lowrie blasted a homerun off Hunter to pull the Sox within a run. Hunter allowed six hits for the gritty AL West Rangers. Boston knocked him around in the top of the fourth and eventually out of the game all together. David Ortiz led off the inning with a game tying solo shot. Adrian Beltre, the next batter, also went deep to give the Sox the lead. Beltre’s 427 foot shot was followed by another homerun. J.D. Drew took Hunter’s 1-2 offering for a ride to give Boston three straight long balls in the span of seven pitches. Scott Feldman came out of the pen, signaling the end of Hunter’s night. Mike Lowell drew a walk off the reliever and Marco Scutaro singled him in. Victor Martinez added a two-run base hit to put Boston ahead by five. Boston batted around in the fourth, completing their high scoring frame with Ortiz’s grounder that scored Scutaro.
The Rangers began to chip away at Boston’s lead beginning in the bottom of the fourth. Texas tallied two runs on Mitch Moreland’s homerun and made it a two-run game in the fifth on Michael Young’s tater. Drew found the seats again for Boston in the seventh inning off Texas’ Darren Oliver. Terry Francona taxed his dismal bullpen, sending seven relievers to the mound to preserve the game. Texas finished with 17 hits and rallied from a 8-2 deficit to close the gap in the seventh. The home team picked up a run on David Murphy’s sacrifice fly off of Felix Doubront. Boston set-up man, Daniel Bard, surrendered a run on Bengie Molina’s double to score Cruz.
Bard faced the dangerous Vlad Guerrero with two outs and a runner on second in the eighth inning. Guerrero grounded weakly to second base, but the Lowrie rushed the throw to first. The Texas slugger was ruled safe after Lowell came off the bag and Hamilton kept running until he crossed the plate. Both bullpens were effective in retiring batters in the ninth and tenth. Neither team connected for a hit until the decisive eleventh. Wakefield’s first pitch was drilled to left to send Boston home losers and handing David O’Day the win. O’Day hasn’t been scored upon since June 1 and has 26 1/3 straight scoreless frames for the Rangers. The teams go at it again tonight with Daisuke Matsuzaka facing off against the Texas southpaw, C.J. Wilson.

Parting Points: It’s great to see Karl “The Mailman” Malone and Scottie Pippin get some recognition.

K-Rod’s suspension is not severe enough. The Mets’ closer should be facing jail time because this is not the second time he’s been involved in off-the-field scuffles.