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It’s Nelson Cruz’s world, we just live in it. The slugging left fielder went 5-for-5 with two doubles and a home run. He tried for a triple in the eighth inning to complete the cycle but was hosed at third by the combination of Daniel Nava and Stephen Drew. John Lackey had a subpar outing: 5⅓ innings, 10 hits, 5 earned runs, a walk, and 11 strikeouts. Clearly Lackey didn’t have his best stuff, but that didn’t stop him from throwing shade at Cruz. “I’m not even going to comment on him. I’ve got nothing to say about him,” he said. “There are things I’d like to say, but I’m not going to. You guys forget pretty conveniently about stuff.” Cruz’s 50-game suspension resulting from his involvement in Biogenesis did not taint him in voters’ eyes; the outfielder was voted to his third All-Star game. Your browser does not support iframes. Speaking of subpar, Harold Reynolds was practically giddy with each hit by the Orioles. And since they had 16 hits, there was a lot of giggling interspersed with what I assume was supposed to be in-game analysis. Sad to say that the Fire Harold Reynolds blog isn’t as active...
Once upon a time there was a blowout in Boston. It was a very special blowout peppered with Dennis Eckersley’s color vernacular. He calls big tires “meats” and rims “Ansens.” Turns out “Ansens” were not just rims but wheels developed by Louis Senter, a hot rodder. The Red Sox scored in every single inning except the one that David Murphy pitched. Murphy, who was the first round draft pick for the Red Sox in 2003, was forced to take the mound because of the horrific pitching by Justin Grimm, Michael Kirkman, Joseph Ortiz, and Ross Wolf. Jason Frasor was the only other Ranger who toed the rubber to be somewhat successful: Mike Carp lofted a sacrifice fly off of him for a run but he struck out Dustin Pedroia. Jackie Bradley Jr. hit his first major league homer in the second inning. The no-doubter cleared the visitors’ bullpen, landing in the aisle between the fence and the center field bleachers. May it be the first of many. Nelson Cruz gave up his body in the fifth on Carp’s blast into home team’s pen. The score was already 10-2 but the right fielder made a tremendous effort to avoid the additional...
All is not well on the good ship Red Sox. The Rangers’ bats pummeled Clay Buchholz for a quartet of homers. At least this time Ian Kinsler didn’t hit a leadoff four-bagger; he waited until the third inning to unleash his salvo. In Charlie Sheen’s spectrum of winning, Kinsler would rate a respectable tiger blood. (Josh Hamilton would undoubtedly be Adonis DNA-driven while Nelson Cruz is the warlock. “Boom stick” is a euphemism for “wizard staff.”) Carl Crawford was dropped to seventh in the order and Buster Olney made it sound as if Terry Francona had as much faith in his left fielder as Egyptians do Hosni Mubarak. Rather than a vote of no confidence it was a pragmatic tactic in light of facing a southpaw. The newest Boston outfielder responded with his first hit with the Old Towne team, a two-out single in the second that snaked down the first base line. He notched the visitors’ only run of the game in the seventh inning with a line drive to left-center. Later in the seventh Darnell McDonald worked the count full and finagled one of the two bases on balls Matt Harrison would issue. Jacoby Ellsbury took the box...
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Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library’s Sports Temples of Boston.