What a waste. Josh Beckett put in a very nice performance tonight but the offense failed to do anything that would get him a win. He threw one hundred and seven pitches over seven innings, allowing two runs on seven hits. He didn't walk anybody and he struck out nine. Normally, that line should have been enough to get him a win but not tonight.
Manny Delcarmen pitched the eighth inning and didn't have an easy time of it. He got the first batter to ground out to third but then gave up a single, walked Frank Thomas, and gave up another single (that allowed a run to score), before getting the last two outs. The good thing for Manny Del was that Frank Thomas doesn't seem to have gotten to him. Yeah, he walked him but the first pitch he threw to him was a strike, he ran the count full before giving up the walk, and if Coco had gotten a better read on the ball it very well might have been caught. So there's that.
Otherwise, there's not much to say. Varitek spoiled the perfect game in the sixth inning by getting hit. Ortiz broke up the no-hitter in the seventh with a single to right (the only hit they would come up with on the night.) But that's it.
I suppose the question should be: Is Duchscherer really that good or are the bats really that bad? I'll be contrary and go with neither. He got a lot of fly ball outs (sixteen total.) If you put him in a different park, one where his defense isn't as certain of which way a ball is going to break or a park without acres of foul territory, then some of those balls might have dropped. One could also make the argument that he wouldn't have fared nearly as well if the umpire didn't have so ample a strike zone. If one was looking to make excuses for the Sox' bad performance, one might claim that the magnanimous strike zone coupled with the hustle edict caused the Sox to take swings that they might not normally take.
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