Wakefield v. Guthrie (Game 60)

What is it precisely that Tim Wakefield has to do to get a win? I'm sure he'd like to be reminded of what he has to do to get the batters to score runs for him, as well.

Wakefield went seven innings on one hundred and nine pitches. He walked more batters than he struck out (4-3) but he held the Orioles to two runs on five hits. It wasn't a perfect outing but it was good enough. He very likely could have had the win if the batters hadn't come down with another case of leavingrunnersonbaseitis.

Okajima came out for the eighth inning and just had a terrible time of it. He was having a great deal of trouble finding the strike zone-of the seven batters he faced, five of them saw first-pitch balls. He gave up three hits in a row to load the bases with no outs. Millar hit a sacrifice fly to bring in the tying run. The next batter got the second out by grounding into a fielder's choice to first-from the which they took the out at the plate. Okajima then reloaded the bases by walking the next batter. He then gave up a double that brought in three more Oriole runs. He was then pulled in favor of Lopez who who did a nice job of striking out the last batter on four pitches.

They had baserunners in every inning except the fifth but they only managed to move those runners across homeplate in the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth innings. In the sixth inning, Manny hit number 502 to right field for the first run. In the seventh inning, Cora drew a walk and then Cash hit a double to right that brought Cora in. And in the eighth inning, Youkilis walked, Manny hit a single and then they both moved up a base on a wild pitch. Then, Lowell got a basehit that brought in Youkilis for the last run they would score.

I suppose something good to take from the game would be that they made some good defensive plays. Coco made some very nice Coco-esque catches in center to give Wake a hand. And Cash had a very nice strike-him-out-throw-him-out play in the first inning to get out of a sticky situation.

Oh, well. It's not the end of the world.