Lester v. Olson (Game 58)

That was a very exciting game (that turned out to also be a lot of fun.) Not only because of Manny's homerun (more on that later-thoughts need to be collected) but because they repeatedly gave up the lead only to snatch it right back in the next inning, because Pedroia and Ortiz went back-to-back, because Ellsbury legged himself out a triple and stole three bases, because David Aardsma went two whole innings without walking anyone, because Alex Cora and Dustin Pedroia combined for an important (and impressive) double play, and because Youkilis booked it home to beat out a double play.

Lester didn't pitch poorly but his performance wasn't particularly good either. He threw one hundred and three pitches over the course of five innings. He gave up three runs on seven hits, walked three, and struck out four. He seemed to have lost some of his first-pitch strike magic; of the twenty-four hitters he faced only twelve of them got a strike on the first pitch they saw.

David Aardsma came in for the sixth and seventh innings and did a really good job. He faced six batters and sat them all down. The closest he came to walking anyone was two balls to three of the batters. He played really good defense, as well-twice the batter grounded out to first and he covered nicely for Youkilis.

Okajima appeared for the eighth inning. He threw ten pitches to four batters. He gave up a hit but got a strike out, a ground out, and a force out.

Papelbon came out for the ninth inning and seemed to be having a terrible time finding the strike zone. He got the first batter to strike out on three pitches. Then he gave up a single, and walked the next batter on five pitches (some of those balls were nowhere near being strikes.) The last batter lined into a pretty double play-Cora caught the ball for the first out and flipped it to Pedroia for the second out.

The first two runs the Sox scored were on back-to-back homeruns by Pedroia and Ortiz in the third inning. In the sixth inning, Lowell was hit by a pitch, moved over to second on a balk, moved to third on a single by Youkilis, and then came around to score on a single by Varitek. Ellsbury started off the seventh inning with a triple to deep right and scored on a sacrifice fly by Ortiz. And then Manny hit number 500 to right center. In the eighth inning, Youkilis was hit by a pitch and then moved to third on a single by Youkilis. Crisp grounded into a double play and Youkilis booked it home.

Some of the not so good news: Ortiz did something to his wrist in the ninth inning and had to be pinch hit for. They also left a lot of runners on base-the Orioles didn't have a single 1-2-3 inning.