Haren v. Beckett (Game 79)

Well, Beckett pitched well anyway. He went eight innings, throwing one hundred and thirteen pitches. He allowed two runs on five hits and ended up walking two; however, he struck out eight. For the most part, he was cruising along. He gave up a double in the first inning, a double in the second inning, a single in the fifth but all of them were for naught (on the part of the Diamondbacks.) He ran into trouble in the seventh inning when he gave up a lead off walk. He got a strike out but then gave up a base hit and an RBI double. The next batter grounded out to first but another run scored. He walked the next batter but then got a fly out to end the inning. And that was all the offense the Diamondbacks would need.

Aardsma came out to finish off the game and struggled some. He gave up a hit to the first batter and walked the second. The third batter hit a sacrifice bunt (handled very nicely by Varitek and Pedroia) and they intentionally walked the next batter (after Aardsma seemed to have lost the strike zone) to load the bases. He then came back to get two swinging strike outs (and was very excited about it.)

The offense couldn't do much of anything against Dan Haren. Varitek hit a double in the third inning and Ellsbury drew a walk. In the seventh inning, Manny was hit by a pitch and Lowell singled. They finally did score a run off the reliever, Tony Pena *tilde implied*, in the eighth. With one out, Lugo walked, Ellsbury singled, and Pedroia singled to load the bases. Drew hit a sacrifice fly to bring in Lugo but that was all they would get.

Poor Brandon Moss, though. Youkilis had to be pulled from the game before fifth inning when he took a practice ground ball from Lowell in the face and gave him quite a shiner (Paul Lessard seems slightly amused by the injury in the photo.) With Casey suspended for fighting, Moss was their only choice to play first. The man is an outfielder by trade and down at Pawtucket this season he played only thirty-two games (thirty-seven in his professional career) at the position. Somehow, learning to play first well in such a close game doesn't seem ideal.