What a bummer for Masterson. He pitched six really good innings for his major league debut and left the game with a two-run lead, only to have the bullpen blow it for him. But because he's Masterson and a fabulously wonderful person, with a sunny disposition, and a grin a mile wide-he's alright with the outcome. "It was just fun." Awww.
In his six innings Masterson threw ninety-five pitches. He gave up only two hits to the powerful Angels lineup (one a homerun) and he struck out four of them. He also walked four of them. He had ten ground ball outs and three fly ball outs. He also fielded his position well-he had two assists on the put out at first, including foiling a bunt attempt by Figgins.
Lopez came in to relieve him and did a piss-poor job of it. He saw two batters and walked the first (a lefty) and gave up a base hit to the second. Manny Delcarmen was brought in to help but didn't. In fact, he did the exact same thing as Lopez. He walked the first batter he saw and gave up a base hit to the second. Unfortunately, for Delcarmen (and Lopez) a runner came around to score. Lopez has been pitching quite a bit lately and maybe that negatively affected his performance today or maybe it's just that he's back to sucking at getting lefties out. I understand that the bullpen has been depleted as of late and that was probably the reason for having Delcarmen pitch today but he is just getting over the flu.
Okajima was brought into a tough situation to relieve Delcarmen (who looked perfectly happy to give the ball back to Francona.) The bases were loaded and there were no outs against the Angels. After throwing three strikes (two fouled off) and a ball to the first batter he saw, Okajima gave up a base hit to the first batter he saw-allowing the tying run to score. He gave up another base hit to the second batter he saw, two more runs came around to score, and the batter took second on a throwing error by Crisp. They decided to try to pitch to the next batter but after they fell behind him they intentionally walked him. With the bases once again loaded and still no outs, Okajima got his act together and struck out the next two batters he saw (both swinging.) He got the last batter to pop out to short to bring an end to the bleeding.
Aardsma came out to pitch the eighth and didn't do a fabulous job either. He got two quick outs (a ground out and a strike out) but the next batter reached on a bunt and went on to steal second. He walked the next batter on five pitches and then gave up a double, which allowed another run to score. He got the last batter to fly out to center.
Tavarez pitched the ninth inning. He gave up a base hit before getting the first out (a ground out.) He then walked a batter before giving up a sacrifice fly to give the Angels a four run lead. The last out came from a foul ball that Youkilis caught.
Coco had a good game offensively. He got the scoring started in the second inning by batting in Manny on a ground out to second. In the fourth inning he had a ground-ruled double that knocked in another run, then came around to score on ground-ruled double from Cash. And in the sixth inning he had a double off the wall that just barely missed being a homerun.
Manny also had a good performance. He had two singles and a double. Ellsbury, Pedroia, and Lowrie each had a base hit, as well. Ortiz was hitting the ball well today. In the fifth inning he hit a ball to deep center that was very close to being a home run and then in the ninth inning, with two outs, he sent a homerun out to right to cut the Angels lead to two. Unfortunately, Manny flied out to center to end the game.
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