Mussina v. Beckett (Game 12)

God bless mother nature, she's a Red Sox fa-an too. Prior to the two-hour rain delay, I would have put the Rodriguez/Papelbon match-up at about even. I think it would be safe to say now (especially given the ugly hacks on bad pitches that Rodriguez took), that it worked in Paps' favor. I would guess that Rodriguez spent those two and a sixth hours sitting in the clubhouse with the importance of his next at bat weighing on his shoulders and Paps? Well, Paps never thinks about anything-he just went out and threw.

Beckett was improved over his last start. He threw eighty-eight pitches in six and two thirds innings. He started off very strongly with forty pitches through the first four innings. His stamina isn't where it should be yet, though; he needed forty-eight pitches to get through the last inning and two-thirds. He allowed five hits and struck out five. He allowed three runs, all of them coming after he started to fatigue.

Manny Del came out to finish the sixth inning and struck out the only batter he faced. Okajima came out for the beginning of the seventh inning and got two quick outs (though, the second was greatly helped by an impressive defensive play by Drew), walked a batter, and gave up a base hit before it was time for Papelbon (and the rain started to really fall.) When the game started again, Papelbon struck out Rodriguez, Giambi, and Posada. He then had quite a long battle with Robinson Cano (who had a nice night offensively) before they got the put-out at first to end the game.

Offensively, this was Manny's game. He hit number 492 to the Volvo sign in the fourth inning and then knocked in two runs (Ellsbury who had reached on a base hit and Pedroia who had doubled) on a double in the sixth. He then crossed home plate when during the very next at bat, Youkilis hit a base hit. Ellsbury had two base hits and Pedroia, Youkilis, and Varitek each had one. Ellsbury stole second on the base hit he had in the first.

Defensively, they turned two nice double plays. One in the seventh in which Youkilis covered second for the first out on Rodriguez before turning the ball over to Casey for the second out on Giambi; the other in the second. Drew and Ramirez also made nice catches in their respective right and left fields for outs. Sean Casey also contributed nicely to a put out at first. It leads to the question: How did he end up as a back up first baseman? He can still hit and he plays a good defensive first base. Sure, he had some errors up in the Toronto series but those could easily have been chalked up to tiredness. Not that I'm complaining but it is weird.