One of the best defenders in the history of the NBA once said about Larry Bird that, "you could never feel completely comfortable with any lead because you never knew WHEN Larry was gonna take over."
Tonight's Sox game versus the yankees kinda had that feeling despite a line score that seemed like a ridiculous walk-over. Despite having leads of 4-0 and 7-2, the game never seemed completely comfortable until the very last strike was in Tek's catcher's mitt.
Before any analysis or facts, I must mention that the cheap shot A-Rod landed on Dustin Pedroia in the above picture did NOT go unnoticed by either Red Sox OR yankee observers. Not only that, but he won't even get the pleasure of a protest from the Red Sox either. Sorry Axel-Rod, keep on spinning those wheels.
As I mentioned regarding last night's pitchers, neither pitcher dominated and in fact Mike Mussina looked absolutely pedestrian. Julian Tavarez dominated early before giving up his first two hits in the fourth inning, but then struggled with his control before departing with two outs in the 6th inning. Javier Lopez came in and shut down the four hitters he faced before normally dominant relievers Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon walked a total of 4 hitters and made Red Sox Nation squirm through the last two innings. One can only hope these were the aberrant outings of the month for these two guys.
One more to go this week with Curt Schilling slated to take the mound versus Andy Pettite who despite an excellent sub-3.00 ERA has only a couple of wins to his credit.
Gotta love those rubber matches... LOTS of friction!!
My pick (with 3 runs scored off the NY bullpen):
Red Sox 6
NYy 3
P.S. If you get a chance, look at the video link of Manny's laser bomb from the first inning. OUCH. Hope no one in the stands was hurt. It almost killed a Moose I heard...
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