Game one of the Red Sox series is always a big game, you want to start
off strong, it's fun to play in Fenway, and in this case two legendary
former Red Sox started for the Tribe, against one of their playoff
heroes. It was Lowe vs. Beckett, and for some reason Johnny Damon
decided to shave before this game, which doesn't make sense since it was
his beard and long hair that made him so memorable in Boston. And his
leadoff hitting skills too had a little to do with it.
The game started off just like most others, Indians start off going
1-2-double for A-Cab-SB for A-Cab, Pronk ground out, and then the Red
Sox go 1-2-3. Then the second inning started, and that's where the fun
began if you are an Indians fan. Carlos Santana led off with a
strikeout, but took several pitches to get out. Not a great start, but
then Big League Choo walks and maybe those additional pitches helped
that. Well Brantley followed up with a double moving Choo to 3rd.
Brantley would go 4-5 last night hitting 2 doubles, 2 singles, and 2
RBIs. Then Grimmace took another 7 pitches, and hit a deep sac fly to
CF scoring Choo. That was pretty good for him, and we were up 1-0.
Good right? But what is better than a sac fly? A Manahan 2 run HR down
Pesky's pole to clear the bases. Then Johnny Damon weakly grounded out
to end the top of the 2nd. 3-1 Tribe after 2 innings, as Derek Lowe
would allow an Adrian Gonzalez double to lead off the Red Sox 2nd, and
then they manufactured him home. Derek Lowe looked great tonight, he
was locating his pitches all night, and really only ran into trouble
with 2 outs, so he was always just one pitch away from exiting a
potentially bad inning.
Now we come to the top of the third inning. Beckett would basically
pull a Tin Cup and keep dropping the ball in the water on this hole, but
unfortunately in baseball, you can get pulled before finally hitting the
green. The inning lead off with a Kipnis HR into the Red Sox bullpen.
They then began to get somebody loose in their bullpen. A-Cab single,
Pronk walk, Santana fly out, Choo double to score A-Cab, Brantley double
to score Pronk and Choo, and that's the book on Josh Beckett. 7 outs
for 7 runs. Thanks good sir. Like I said in the preview for this
series, we can hit Beckett anytime it isn't the playoffs. The fact that
Beckett is now an enemy of the Red Sox fanbase while he is still on the
team won't make getting into the playoffs any easier for them. Beckett
may have some personality issues, he may have some injury problems, but
if you have him on your team in the playoffs then he is a shutdown
pitcher as he has proven over the years. 7-1 Indians after 3 innings.
From there the Indians would put it in cruise control for an 8-3 win
over the Red Sox. Lowe improves to 5-1 as an Indian, and Josh Beckett
had to face several tough questions about why he was too injured to
pitch, and then the next day went golfing. He did drop the classic "We
only get 18 off days a year, I should be allowed to spend them however I
want" line, which is humorous if you remember that there are 6 months
where he isn't playing baseball each calendar year.
For the Indians the bats where rolling off of Beckett, and that is a
good sign. Choo looked good, and obviously Brantley was the most locked
in of all the hitters. This game played out well, because all the
hitters got a few looks at several of the Boston relievers that we will
see over the next 3 games, so while we only scored 1 run off of the
Boston bullpen last night, I expect that number to increase as we roll
thru the series.
Interesting development is occurring in the Bullpen Mafia which is still
awesome fyi. Tony Sipp came on to pitch in the 7th inning, and his
second batter was Dustin Pedroia. Rick Manning on commentary during the
at-bat said that Derek Lowe did great by keeping the ball low and
forcing Pedroia to hit over the top of the ball and ground out each
at-bat. He then said Pedroia loves the ball up and is a great high ball
hitter. Next pitch, Sipp attempts a high fastball, and then bye bye
ball, solo HR for Pedroia. Sipp now has an ERA of 8.38, and another
lefty that is temporarily called up named Nick Hagadone(who came in the
9th to seal the game) has a 0.87 ERA. Rafael Perez should be coming
back soon, so what do you do with the bullpen? I am a big Tony Sipp
fan, but does he need a few more consistent outings in Columbus to get
back on track? Are his numbers not representative of how good he has
been since he doesn't face many batters each game. I like Sipp and
Perez, but this Hagadone guy is having a really really strong year so
far, so I don't think you can send him down with the roll he is on.
Funny moment of the game occurred when Grimmace got hit by a pitch. No
its not funny for a player to get pegged, but the TV guys when they
viewed the replay they thought it might have missed Grimmace and hit the
bat. Manning said, "Well you knew it caught some part of his hand
because he grimaces and goes down pretty fast, maybe it hit the bat
after". No guys, he just Grimmaces all the time. Still making great
defensive plays and saving runs for the pitchers too. He does grimace
on defense too, fyi.
Ubaldo Jimenez will get the next stab at a very battered Red Sox team.
They have 11 players on the DL. Losing this series is unacceptable at
this time for the first place Indians.
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
J Damon LF 5 0 1 0 0 1 18 .171 .194 .257
A Cunningham LF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .227 .320 .273
J Kipnis 2B 5 2 2 1 0 0 16 .270 .343 .492
A Cabrera SS 4 1 2 0 0 0 11 .343 .427 .539
T Hafner DH 4 1 0 0 1 0 19 .245 .392 .436
C Santana C 4 0 0 1 0 2 17 .255 .382 .415
S Choo RF 3 2 1 1 2 1 24 .239 .369 .337
M Brantley CF 5 1 4 2 0 0 17 .256 .302 .355
C Kotchman 1B 2 0 0 1 0 0 13 .194 .283 .290
J Hannahan 3B 4 1 2 2 0 1 14 .300 .379 .456
Totals 36 8 12 8 3 5 149
BATTING
2B: A Cabrera (11, J Beckett); M Brantley 2 (10, J Beckett 2); S Choo
(6, J Beckett)
HR: J Hannahan (3, 2nd inning off J Beckett 1 on, 2 Out); J Kipnis (6,
3rd inning off J Beckett 0 on, 0 Out)
RBI: C Kotchman (9), J Hannahan 2 (18), J Kipnis (21), S Choo (12), M
Brantley 2 (11), C Santana (16)
SF: C Santana, C Kotchman
2-out RBI: J Hannahan 2
GIDP: A Cabrera
Indians RISP: 4-14 (M Brantley 1-2, C Santana 0-1, S Choo 1-1, J
Hannahan 2-4, J Damon 0-2, J Kipnis 0-1, T Hafner 0-2, C Kotchman 0-1)
Team LOB: 8
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