Red Sox down O's behind Bay's blasts
BALTIMORE -- One thing Jason Bay learned rather fast upon arriving with the Red Sox is that the team has more home venues than just Fenway Park. But even he had to be somewhat taken aback by just how loud the roars were when his second home run -- a two-run shot over the wall in center in the top of the eighth -- blasted off his bat in Monday's 6-3 victory over the Orioles.
If the Red Sox have a true home away from home, it has to be Camden Yards, a venue the New Englanders always flock to in big numbers.
"To be honest with you, it didn't even occur to me that we were on the road, even in warmups," said Bay, who went 3-for-5 with four RBIs. "And they had told me that when we came here, it was going to be like that a lot. That's something I'm definitely not accustomed to. Pretty neat. It was a pretty neat little experience."
Behind Bay's first multihomer game in a Boston uniform and Jason Varitek's first long ball since July 21, a two-game losing streak was upended by the Red Sox.
All in all, it was just the type of start the defending World Series champions were looking for on a night they opened a nine-game road trip.
"We've got to win," said Red Sox slugger David Ortiz. "This is the last six weeks of the season. Tampa Bay has been an unbelievable ballclub. We've got to dig in now."
With the Rays winning again, the Red Sox (72-53) remained 4 1/2 games back in the American League East while maintaining a 1 1/2-game lead on Minnesota in the Wild Card standings.
Ultimately, the Red Sox will go as far as their pitching takes them.
In this one, Jon Lester continued his breakout season by stifling the Orioles (60-64) over his seven innings of work. The lefty allowed four hits and one run while striking out five, running his record to 12-4 and lowering his ERA to 3.17. It was Lester's 16th quality start, tying Tim Wakefield for the team lead.
Perhaps the most telling stat regarding Lester this season is that he's 6-1 in 11 starts following a Boston loss.
"You want to go out every five days and give quality starts," said Lester. "Whether we lost the game before or won the game before, it doesn't really matter. You want to go out and pitch your game, and hopefully, we end up wining."
The lefty's coming of age has been one of the better stories of the season.
"He's standing out there like he's 6-foot-4, left-handed, strong kid," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. "I'm sure if you ask him, the game has slowed down for him. He's accumulated some innings, he's gotten some experience, he executes pitches. He gets it and throws it -- works quicker than he used to. He's got that cutter. He's got some two-seam movement with some velocity behind it. He's got a lot of ways to get you out."
Losing pitcher Jeremy Guthrie (10-9) nearly matched Lester, giving up five hits and two runs over his seven innings.
The Red Sox got two loud hits for their two runs in the top of the second. Bay led off by belting a solo shot to right-center. With two outs, Varitek smashed a towering drive over the right-field stands and on to Eutaw Street to make it 2-0.
In the midst of his most trying season offensively (.216, nine homers, 33 RBIs), Varitek keeps plugging away in hopes that something will click.
"It felt good," Varitek said of the homer. "It's been a fight every once in a while for one [successful] at-bat throughout a game, or one or two, so maybe it will start coming together."
Lester made that lead stand up until bottom of the fourth, when Aubrey Huff hit a fastball over the wall in center to make it 2-1.
From that point on, both starting pitchers got in a groove and stayed there.
Rocky Cherry came on for the Orioles in the eighth, and his night got off to an unfortunate start when Kevin Millar couldn't handle David Ortiz's hard grounder to first. The error came back to haunt the Orioles when Bay ripped Cherry's 81-mph slider high and far to make it 4-1.
In his first 16 games with the Red Sox, Bay is hitting .348 with three homers and 16 RBIs.
"With the guys in front of me, I get up there two or three times a game and there's guys on base," Bay said. "Part of my job is driving in runs. You have to have guys on base to do that. It's nice hitting fifth, just trying to be a complement to the puzzle. You're not asking one guy in that lineup to carry a load. You're asking a bunch of guys to pitch in. It's a lot easier to perform that way."
As it turns out, Bay's second homer was big. Manny Delcarmen walked two in the eighth. With two outs, Jonathan Papelbon came on and surrendered a two-run double to Huff, slimming the lead to 4-3.
The Red Sox bounced back with a couple of insurance runs in the ninth, giving Papelbon some security.
The closer nailed down a perfect ninth for save No. 33.
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Ellsbury a late scratch for Tuesday
BOSTON -- Jacoby Ellsbury was a late scratch for Tuesday's game at Fenway Park against the Rangers due to a bruised tailbone stemming from being hit by a John Danks pitch in Chicago on Monday.
Ellsbury was originally in the lineup batting eighth and playing center field. But due to being bruised and feeling uncomfortable due to the hit-by-pitch, he did not start the contest.
Ellsbury is batting .526 over his past five games, with two homers and three stolen bases, and that plunking broke up Danks' perfect game on Monday.
Ellsbury didn't get the night completely off, however, as he played a pivotal role in the Red Sox's 19-17 victory. The rookie walked as a pinch-hitter for Kevin Cash in the eighth inning and eventually scored the game-tying run on Dustin Pedroia's double.
Copyright 2008 Sporting Life UK Ltd, All Rights Reserved.
Tatis preempts Heilman's miscue
NEW YORK -- Teams with October aspirations don't fret about appearances. All victories, regardless of how they look and how they are achieved, are good. Any loss, no matter the gallantry and resilience demonstrated, is bad. The bottom line is a top priority. That said, the Mets defeated the Padres on Tuesday night, and in the process, blurred the bottom line.
Their 6-5 victory was their first of any description in five games, so it was a most welcome development. And, coming as it did, on a night when the second-place Marlins defeated the first-place Phillies, only delighted the third-place Mets.
"We can't lose on a night like this if we win," Brian Schneider said in a language related to Stengelese.
Still, the tentative nature of the victory that was replete with a disturbing ninth inning, had the Mets a tad unsure of what they had accomplished. Had they won or had they narrowly avoided defeat?
The ninth inning had dispelled much of the good the first eight innings had produced. Aaron Heilman, cast in the closer's role because of an injury to Billy Wagner, had all but offset the two home runs hit by Fernando Tatis and another effective performance by Mike Pelfey. Moreover, the three-run homer Heilman surrendered to Jody Gerut in the ninth had fueled whatever doubts had existed about his readiness to do Wagner's job.
"He was in this kind of thing early in the season," Schneider said. "He came out of it. You hope he can come out of it again. We need him."
The Mets play 12 games in the next 12 days, a dozen before Wagner is eligible to return to duty. But who's counting? Only those who cascaded boos upon Heilman as he strode off the field with two outs left, and a lead slashed from four runs to one by the ninth home run he has allowed in merely 60 1/3 innings. And certainly some of the people who share the dressing room with Heilman are counting too, not that they readily would admit to it. To do so would be to dilute his confidence to an even greater degree.
It's bad enough that manager Jerry Manuel prefaced his postgame remarks by asking that the water in his bottle be changed to wine and that Scott Schoeneweis, who saved the victory for Pelfrey with one pitch, characterized Heilman's situation as "one of those years."
It's bad enough that Heilman departed with a sense of "utter disgust" pulsing through his brain along with this gnawing thought: "The ninth inning is different." He didn't need to have that truth reinforced so emphatically.
"When you're the closer, you have no backup," Schoeneweis said.
In the spring, when Wagner described Heilman as a closer in the making, he qualified it by saying, "If he's dumb enough."
"I think I am," Heilman said after his four-batter ordeal.
Not all the trouble was of his making, though. He did walk the leadoff batter, Nick Hundley, on four pitches, the last of which was a slider. That choice of pitch with a four-run lead distressed his manager to such a degree that Manuel couldn't say who his closer would be on Wednesday night.
Luis Rodriguez followed the walk with a bloop single to center field that second baseman Argenis Reyes should have caught, or in the mind of his manager, at least pursued more aggressively. The Mets might have turned a double play on the ensuing ground ball to third base by Scott Hairston. They didn't. Gerut then hit a misplaced 1-1 fastball over the right-center-field wall. It was the second three-run homer allowed by Heilman, who has allowed two grand slams as well.
He made no excuses. He seldom does. He said, "The bullpen picked me up," but acknowledged he hadn't done the same for the flawed defense that undermined his work.
Heilman appeared more affected by this performance -- in a victory -- than he'd been in any of his six losses. He knows what this performance suggests. He knew how the home run looked to those watching through the prism of "Can he do it?"
He probably does need to be dumber, or least more forgetful.
"I have to turn the page," he said.
Some pages become dog-eared, though.
Heilman hadn't asked for the assignment. But, in Manuel's thinking, he was the only man for the job in terms of resume and stuff. The Mets' sense of Heilman is that he is best equipped among those relievers still standing to "cross over," i.e., to face left-handed and right-handed batters. Gerut, incidentally, bats left-handed. Seven of the nine homers Heilman has allowed have been hit by left-handed batters. He had faced 110 of them.
The numbers are like autopsies, they say what went wrong. The Mets are more concerned about how to fix Heilman. "Growing pains" aren't supposed to happen in August. But closers aren't supposed to go down with 51 games remaining in a season either.
The Mets could cling to the victory if only because losing would have hurt so much more than winning helped. They could hold to Pelfrey's performance -- he leads the Mets staff with 10 victories, eight coming in his 10 most recent starts. He surrendered solo homers to Kevin Kouzmanoff and Adrian Gonzalez and seven other hits and walked one. Pedro Feliciano replaced him in the seventh and completed the eighth. Heilman, Joe Smith and Schoeneweis shared the ninth, with Schoeneweis earning his first save since last September and a Wagner joking around with him by sending a text message that it only took him one pitch.
And they could marvel at Tatis, the stunning revelation. His home runs drove in four runs, including three with one swing that produced a 4-2 lead in the sixth. He hit his first homer with the bases empty against Chris Young with two outs in the fourth inning -- it was the Mets' first hit -- to tie the score. His second came with two runners on base and one out against Young's replacement, Mike Adams. Tatis has nine home runs; two have tied the score and four have produced leads.
The second one, hit near the left-field line, required some direction, so Tatis waved it fair, using all the body English he could muster. Shea Stadium appreciated his swing and his Fisking.
"It's unbelievable what's happening to me," he said. "I'm so surprised. I'm so thankful. All those people shouting my name. I can't describe the feeling."
Shea had shouted Heilman's name too. The Mets had won in spite of him. The bottom line had been blurred, beaten almost beyond recognition.
"I can't find a bright side," Heilman said."Not tonight."
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Angels sweep Red Sox at Fenway
BOSTON -- Two teams entered this week's series at Fenway Park well aware of each other's postseason potential. Both sought wins and an indication of what might lie ahead as the season approaches its final two months.
Three games later, the complexion looks a bit different. The Angels are soaring, acquiring Mark Teixeira from Atlanta and looking fearless on the field. The Red Sox are more along the lines of complete disarray.
"Against everybody, right now we're feeling good," Torii Hunter said. "Everything is just working out. Like I said earlier this year, when everything clicks, this team can be really special. And right now you see what's going on."
The Halos used brute power, took advantage of Red Sox blunders and relied on the left arm of Joe Saunders in a 9-2 victory over the defending World Series champions. The win marked the Angels' eighth in a row against the Sox, bringing Los Angeles' season record against Boston to 8-1.
The eight wins in a row marks the longest winning streak against Boston in team history, tying a streak compiled in the 1961 and '62 seasons.
For two teams in the thick of contention for the American League pennant, the Angels sure made the Red Sox look second-rate in this rare sweep at Fenway. In fact, this series made the defending World Series champions look nowhere near the caliber of this high-powered squad from Anaheim.
"They're a tough club, but we feel fortunate we played this well and got away with three wins," manager Mike Scioscia said, showing admiration to this Red Sox squad that is relatively similar, roster-wise, to the team that won it all a year ago. "You've got to play well to beat them, there's no doubting that."
The Angels did just that, and it all started with the production from veteran Garret Anderson. Despite batting just .188 in June, Anderson found his groove in July and is clearly making everyone remember he's just as viable a force as teammate sluggers Hunter, Teixeira and Vladimir Guerrero.
On a night where newcomer Teixeira went 0-for-4, the longtime Angel Anderson belted his 11th homer of the year in the sixth and went 4-for-5 with four RBIs in the contest. He was accountable for four of the Angels' first five runs, moving him into the team lead with 57 RBIs on the year.
"I've played quite a few years, and I know I can still hit," Anderson said. "So I wasn't panicking about what I was doing earlier in the year. I just figured I had enough time to turn it around and get it right."
Throughout L.A.'s eight wins against the Sox this season, the main component in the majority has been an outburst of runs in a particular inning. Anderson was the catalyst of two such frames on Wednesday.
Boston sent ace Josh Beckett to the hill to rectify the losing skid, but it didn't seem to matter. The Angels used a three-run fourth and a five-run sixth to separate themselves from the Red Sox.
The 2003 World Series MVP with a reputation for big-game pitching cruised through the early innings but couldn't overcome the Angels' constant threats at the plate -- even though he's not exactly a favorite to face in L.A.'s clubhouse.
"When you get him on the ropes, you've got to keep pounding him because the guy is impressive," Hunter said. "I don't like facing him, to be honest with you."
After Wednesday, Beckett might be feeling the same sentiments.
Maicer Izturis began that fourth inning with a double, then came home via Vladimir Guerrero's RBI single. Following a Hunter double, Anderson made the score 3-0 with a base knock of his own.
Boston responded in the fifth. After a leadoff walk to Jason Varitek, Saunders ran into his only hiccup of the contest. With a 1-0 count, Coco Crisp lofted his sixth homer of the year to left-center field, cutting the lead to one.
But later in the inning, with the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on first, Saunders forced a fly out that ended the threat. It was a turning point that Boston never recovered from.
"That was huge," Saunders said. "I struggled there. I thought I threw a good pitch to Crisp, and he just made a good swing on a good pitch. We battled out of a jam, got that third out and got us back into the dugout."
The Angels put it out of reach after that. Anderson's sixth-inning blast started the five-run landslide. In fact, that's about the time when the Red Sox began showing signs of a wearing club that was simply overmatched by L.A.
The Sox committed four errors in the game, three of which came in the sixth.
"They cracked the door open a little bit tonight, defensively," Scioscia said, "and we took advantage of it."
Even though the calendar has yet to flip to August, the way this three-game sweep took place shows there's little doubt this squad from Anaheim is more than a formidable threat in the AL pennant chase.
"We go out there against Tampa, Cleveland, whoever it may be -- we're worrying about the task at hand, the game at hand and nothing else," Hunter said. "We don't worry too much about teams that are .500 or Boston or New York, teams that have a name for themselves.
"We go out there and play. That's what we do."
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Baker has meeting with Reds owner
CINCINNATI -- In the minutes following ballgames, local media members usually make their first stop inside Reds manager Dusty Baker's office for his postgame comments before talking to the players.
That wasn't the case on Wednesday night following Cincinnati's 9-5 loss to the Pirates. Reporters were sent to the players' locker area first, while Baker spent several minutes in a one-on-one meeting with Reds owner/CEO Bob Castellini, who made a beeline from his suite to the clubhouse area when the game ended.
"Sometimes. Not that often," Baker said of the frequency of Castellini's visits.
The 39-47 Reds were coming off their first winning road trip of the season, but dropped two of three in a home series to the Pirates. Cincinnati entered the night in the National League Central cellar, 12 games behind the first-place Cubs. The Reds have a 12-23 record vs. opponents with sub-.500 record, like the Pirates.
"[Castellini] came down to say, 'Hey man, you're doing what you can do and just keep your head up,'" Baker said. "Like I told him, my head can get down tonight, but it will be back up tomorrow."
Castellini, a fervent Reds fan before he brought the team in 2006, has previously voiced his displeasure and frustration over losing. That point was driven home when general manager Wayne Krivsky was dismissed 21 games into this season. Cincinnati is 30-35 since Walt Jocketty replaced Krivsky.
"We're all frustrated, you know?" Baker said.
Baker has no job security issues, whatsoever. He was hired in October and signed to a three-year contract.
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Phils pick Susdorf enjoys CWS win
OMAHA, Neb. -- It's not easy to make Steve Susdorf talk about himself. Ask the outfielder about his personal development over the last four years, and he transfers the credit to Fresno State's head coach, Mike Batesole. Ask him about the College World Series performance that put him on the all-CWS team, and he credits the hitters around him.
Ask him about this team, this unheralded Fresno State team that became the lowest-seeded team to win a national championship with a 6-1 win over Georgia on Wednesday, and he opens up. This team is why Susdorf passed on a chance at professional baseball in 2007, when he was drafted in the 27th round of the First-Year Player Draft by the Detroit Tigers.
"Definitely the main reason [I came back] was all the guys we had coming back, all the talent we had, and I knew we had a chance to do something special," Susdorf said. "It was the biggest payoff of my life. I'll be able to look back on this; we'll all be able to come back on reunions and look back on this."
"This is a guy that is going to graduate in civil engineering in four years," Batesole said. "We just played 78 games this semester and [he got a] 4.0 in engineering, in his hardest semester. When you can get it done in the classroom and the field, that's what it's all about."
Susdorf completed his degree, despite Major League organizations beating on his door. After the Tigers selected him last season, he was drafted again in 2008, in the 19th round of the First-Year Player Draft by the Philadelphia Phillies. While a career in professional baseball beckoned, Susdorf resisted, and completed his degree.
"Civil engineering is a great degree to have, and it's a hard degree to [get] to when all the stuff is out of your head," he said.
For the Bulldogs, the 2008 season played out about as difficult as one of Susdorf's hydraulics labs. The team entered the NCAA Tournament after winning the WAC Championship, and given its RPI ranking of 89 entering the tournament, it's likely the team would not have made the tournament as an at-large bid.
However, after losing two of three games to Sacramento State to finish the regular season, Batesole said Susdorf and his peers began to carry the team.
"I got out of the way and these eight seniors took control of this ballclub," Batesole said. "They decided that we were going to do things right on and off the ballfield, and it was beautiful to be a part of. All I had to do was get out of the way."
In handing the keys to the team over, Batesole had the perfect leader. Not only was Susdorf selfless, but with 39 home runs over his career and a .343 batting average, the Newhall, Calif., native led by example.
"You want to talk about someone who understands and believes in what college baseball should be, all you have to do is look at Steve Susdorf," Batesole said.
The senior outfielder also had to guide the team after winning the WAC Tournament, when Fresno State began an incomprehensible six weeks on the road together. Other teams in Omaha talked about how spending so much time in hotels was getting to their heads -- the hotels were jokingly compared to "The Shining" -- but Susdorf said being on the road made the team closer.
"We've been with each other for I don't know how many weeks," Susdorf said. "We've been with each other all the time, and it's never gotten old. No fights, not anything like that."
Susdorf led his team in developing a fighting attitude. In Game 2 of the championship series, Fresno State found itself down, 5-0, after just two innings. It hardly fazed the Bulldogs, however, as they bounced back and scored 19 runs.
"There was no sense of panic," Susdorf said. "No one was panicking. 'Oh my god, it's 5-0; we might not play tomorrow.' No one gets too stressed out in situations like that. We never did that. We were just happy to be here, happy to be on this field, happy to be playing, ultimately." When Susdorf spent time with some opponents following the Bulldogs' run in the WAC Tournament, they told him that the team's inability to get fazed in a situation was remarkable.
Their ability to celebrate, however, might come into question. For a moment after winning the national championship, Susdorf saw his baseball career and his life flash before his eyes.
"I was having a panic attack -- I couldn't breathe and I thought I was going to die," he joked.
Of course, that might be a little understandable, because Susdorf was at the bottom of a 25-man pile, his teammates on top of him in excitement. It certainly was fitting for Susdorf to be at the bottom, as his teammates climbed on his back far more often than he would admit in the last four years.
Once the national championship trophy was handed to Batesole, he handed it right over to his senior outfielder, and none of his teammates asked to take it from him for the next 15 minutes.
"This is something everybody dreams about, something I'll be able to look back upon and remember, definitely something special," Susdorf said.
It might just be the one time he used the word "I" all week.
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Manuel's first win a sweet one
ANAHEIM -- Call it fire, call it fight, call it coincidence. Whatever the name, whatever the source, the Mets boasted something on Wednesday night that they've lacked in recent weeks. Call it luck. The Mets don't care. They call it a win.
Jerry Manuel calls it his first managerial success in five years. Certainly, he wasn't the lone source of this victory, a 5-4 decision over the Angels. But his presence -- and the absence of distraction -- surrounded the Mets with a cleaner sort of environment.
Gone were the questions of managerial turmoil, of whether or not Willie Randolph would have a job. Gone, too, were the day-old questions of how Manuel might change this club. What remained were nothing more than questions of baseball -- questions of how the Mets might win. So when Damion Easley launched a go-ahead homer in the 10th inning on Wednesday, the Mets felt somewhat cleansed.
"Everybody in here obviously loves and respects Willie," David Wright said. "With that being said, we have to move on for the sake of making the playoffs. And Jerry is extremely capable of doing that. He's got the respect of this clubhouse."
So the Mets went about their business on Wednesday under a new set of circumstances. They were down in this game, came back, then went ahead when Easley dumped Angels reliever Justin Speier's pitch over the left-field wall with two outs in the 10th inning.
And nothing bad happened after that.
"It was a good feeling to sense that it wasn't over," Easley said. "There was no frustration, and we got a win."
It seemed as if the Mets would face another loss, until, with two outs in the ninth inning and reigning All-Star closer Francisco Rodriguez on the mound, Wright singled home the game-tying run. Jose Reyes had singled with one out to spark the rally, then reached second base on a wild pitch. Reyes finished with three hits in all, and nearly reached second base on a popout in the seventh. Manuel's influence or sheer coincidence?
"That's the way I'm supposed to run," Reyes said.
And that's the way the Mets are supposed to win.
"We've been losing these games all year," Wright said.
They're the games that could have gone either way, due to some evenly matched starting pitching. Though the Mets -- Reyes, mostly -- jumped on Angels starter Jon Garland for three runs in the early innings, lefty Oliver Perez quickly gave all of them back.
Wednesday again proved that there's no denying Perez's inconsistency, but there are different ways to view it. Before the game, one reporter asked Manuel just what he thought of Perez, considering the ups and downs throughout his Mets career.
"Oh, man," Manuel said, laughing. "That's a very good question."
One day earlier, new pitching coach Dan Warthen faced the same question.
Warthen, too, chuckled for a moment.
"I have a lot of thoughts," he said.
Truth is, since Perez joined the Mets midway through the 2006 season, no one -- not Manuel, not Randolph, not ex-pitching coach Rick Peterson -- has been able to figure him out. Sometimes, he's great. Sometimes, he's not.
Often, Perez is lodged directly in between.
More than the meltdowns and more than the gems, Wednesday night's game was the type that has come to mark Perez's tenure in New York. He didn't pitch particularly poorly against the Angels, nor did he pitch particularly well. Instead, Perez allowed too many hits and too many walks, but he escaped a few jams and gave the Mets a chance to win.
His greatest trouble came in the fifth inning, when five straight Angels reached base with no outs. Three of them scored, but not all of the hits were particularly well struck.
"During that one inning, I wasn't so concerned with that," Manuel said. "There's going to be times when other teams get momentum and flow."
More disturbing to Manuel was the RBI single that Jeff Mathis hit the previous inning, providing the first contribution to the Angels' comeback.
But while those two rallies temporarily shackled the Mets, it was their own late offense that marked the night. Reyes gave them spark. Wright gave them life.
"We honestly felt like it was our game after that happened," Easley said.
Their season, too. Wednesday's win, coupled with the Phillies' 7-4 loss to the Red Sox, pulled the Mets back to within 5 1/2 games of first place in the National League East. They haven't been this close since their four-game sweep in San Diego -- the series that directly led to Randolph's demise.
They'd like to edge closer, and there's plenty of time to do it. Maybe Manuel can help or maybe he won't be any help at all. A sample size this small can't say, but what's clear is that the Mets flew out of California in far better shape than they arrived.
They wanted stability, and they received it. Now they simply want to win.
"We're not sitting in here saying, 'Let's win this one for Jerry,'" said Billy Wagner, who picked up his 16th save. "It's not about that. It's, 'Let's win it for the Mets.'"
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
|
