Red Sox 13 - Rays 5

And somehow this feels a little more familiar. Not the Red Sox annihilating Scott Kazmir, that was a little odd, but with the win the Red Sox move into a tie for first place. Yes, we know, the Sox are still one back in the loss column, but they were 5.5 games behind the Rays at the start of September. That's right, folks, the Rays are finally floundering (oh yes, pun INtended). It's been hard to root against Tampa Bay - the young team finally coming together to put a run together for long enough to potentially make a World Series run and not to mention the classic, lovable worst-to-first scenario. However, they were becoming too pesky and getting in the way of my team, and as much as I love an underdog, I LOVE the Sox.

The game was an offensive outburst with David Ortiz launching a 3-run homerun in the bottom of the first before Kazmir recorded an out. Two batters later Lowell belted a solo shot and the Sox were out in front 4-0. That proved to be enough for road-warrior Matsuzaka who improved to 8-0 on the road with today's win. In all, the Sox hit 6 home runs (Papi, Lowell, Bay, Youkie, Tek, and Ellsbury all had one), including Bay's third-catwalk-ground-rule-homer. All the while, Dice-K doing what Dice-K does best: throwing 4,254* pitches over 5 innings with 7 strikeouts and (amazingly, only) two walks.

Slightly overlooked (eh not really), Timlin's scoreless, 8-pitch 8th inning was his 1,050th appearance putting him first all-time amongst right-handed relief pitchers. He still trails all-time appearance leader Jessie Orosco by 198 appearances, but even Timlin knows he won't be able to catch him. Timlin has been struggling this year, posting a 5.96 ERA, and notably losing the 14-inning marathon game against the Rays last week. However, Sox fans will always remember 2004 (no matter how cliche that phrase has become) and how safe we felt once we heard Black Betty roar over the Fenway speakers. In those years, if we could get to Timlin, we were going to be ok. So go Timlin!

An interesting side-plot with the Sox reclaiming a piece of the AL East is how the Rays are going to handle it. The youth of the Rays, which has made them an exciting team is now working against them, as they have to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and avoid a Milwaukee/San Diego situation from 2007 (where the Rockies came out of nowhere to capture the Wild Card). But they're young, do they know how to lower their shoulders and run through this? Well, they're 7 games up on the Twinkies and 9 up on the Yanks with two weeks left in the season, and both teams face the Sox who are still fighting for a playoff spot. So, I think we'll see the Rays in the playoffs for the first time in their franchise's history, but they will be a wild card team and I'm not expecting much. Too young, peaked too early, but they're still a fun team and I look forward to more battles with them in the coming years.

One more thing. When my father and I saw Bay launch his homerun we had this exchange.

Kyle: Wow, Kazmir does not have it today.
Dad: Think he has money on the game?
Kyle: Naw, he's making too much money for that.
Dad: You sure he's not making minimum?
Kyle: ... Yeah but he's in arbitration.

Looking this up - Kazmir is making $3.785 Mil this year (Cot's Baseball contracts), and it is his first year making over the MLB minimum which is under .5 Mil.

Don't think about this too much.

*Note: In this posting 4,254 = 101.


This post was written by flamboyant heterosexual, Kyle Baxter.