Wakefield v. Robertson (Game 35)

Nicely done by Timeehs.

Wakefield pitched eight scoreless innings, gave up only two hits, struck out six, and didn't walk anyone. Not a typical Wakefield start at all; plus, the game was under ten hours long (I don't remember the last time I was going to head to bed this early.) As much as I was attached to Dougie, it seems (from the post-game interview snippets) that Cash might have had a lot to do with bringing out the awesome-ness of Tim Wakefield tonight. In Wake's interview he said that Cash pointed out that he was stepping to the left side (and I don't know anything about pitching mechanics but apparently, working on not doing that somehow helped him pitch better tonight.) And in Cash's interview he seemed to be implying that he was calling for Wake to rely on the knuckleball less.

Mike Timlin pitched the ninth inning and did a decent job of it. He gave up a hit to the first batter he faced but got the second to ground into a double play. The last batter he pitched to flew out to left. He threw eleven pitches, eight of them for strikes. Given the state of the bullpen beyond Papelbon and Okajima, it was a pretty good outing.

The Red Sox only scored in the second and seventh innings. The second inning started off with a four-pitch walk to Mike Lowell. Youkilis quickly followed that up with a double and Lowell moved over to third. Drew hit a single to center-it knocked Lowell in and moved Youkilis over to third. Then, little Kevin Cash hit a double to center-Youkilis scored and Drew moved over to third. Lugo, probably in an attempt at a sacrifice, flew out to right-unfortunately, the ball didn't travel far enough and Drew stayed at third. It was then back to the top of the order for Coco, who grounded out to the short stop but did allow Drew to score. The inning ended when Pedroia grounded out.

The Red Sox capped off their offensive push in the seventh inning with two home runs. They came off the bats of Ortiz and Manny and were, literally, back-to-back home runs, i.e. they were hit off consecutive pitches. Ortiz worked himself to a full count and then shot a pitch to several rows back on the right side. It was his seventh on the season and briefly gave him the record for most Red Sox home runs in the 2008 season-it lasted just about as long as it took him to circle the bases. Manny, demanding the record be returned to him, put a beautiful swing on the first pitch he saw and sent 497 to straight-away center field, just beyond the four hundred and twenty feet mark.