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A.J. Pierzynski did his usual ground out on the first pitch in the second inning but eventually mustered two hits. His two-out single to left field in the eighth inning enabled the Cardinals to take the lead 3-2. As Pierzynski went home on John Jay’s single he glared into the Red Sox dugout. Two former Red Sox starters hung out together. Cardinals fans weren’t too enthralled by the John Lackey acquisition. They warmed to him rather quickly when he pitched seven strong innings and notched a tight 3-2 win against the division-leading Brewers on August 3. Justin Masterson seems much more in line with the Cardinals Way. He also pitched in a winning effort against the Brewers in his senior circuit debut but allowed five runs over six innings pitched. They are probably having a laugh about having to hit but also getting to face their counterparts when on the mound. Of all the traded starters Jake Peavy seems to have landed in the best situation with the Giants: pitchers’ park, no designated hitter, and second in the division. Jon Lester can enjoy the spacious foul territory and outfield fences of the Coliseum but doesn’t get the benefit of pitching...
Who’s prepared to pay the price for a trip to paradise? Grass- and blood-stained Jonny Gomes is. The green smears are from his diving grab of Alexei Ramirez’s sinking line drive in the fourth inning. In the seventh Gomes was hit in the face by Tyler Flowers’s fly ball but still recovered in time to get Alejandro De Aza out at home. Love that’s only slightly soiled, love for sale. It is not coincidence that A.J. PIerzynski’s departure has altered the attitude in the clubhouse. Rob Bradford’s report stated that players went to management about Pierzynski’s lack of engagement with his pitchers. Pierzynski’s approach at the plate was in opposition to the Red Sox philosophy of seeing as many pitches as possible. His impatience at the plate, deteriorated offensive production, and lack of camaraderie are not missed. Being a catcher requires levels of sacrifice. You submit your body to countless hours crouching, ricochets, and, prior to the rule change, collisions. You spend time with your battery mates learning their strengths and the opposition’s weaknesses. Pierzynski wasn’t up for that commitment any longer. Old love, new love, every love but true love. Pierzynski’s replacement Christian Vazquez went 0-for-3 in his major...
Many sources including Ken Rosenthal are tweeting that A.J. Pierzynski was designated for assignment. Catching prospect Christian Vazquez will be called up from Pawtucket to replace him. Everyone’s excited to see what this 23-year old has rather than watch Pierzynski pop out on the first pitch or get thrown out at second base trying to stretch a single into a double. There was always the chance Pierzynski would get into a brawl, however, and that would have added some excitement to this season. Let the youth movement begin!...
Jim Joyce, the first base umpire, concentrated on Mike Napoli’s feet rather than the ball in the glove as Adam Eaton charged down the first base line in the fifth inning. Stephen Drew’s throw pulled Napoli off the bag and Joyce called Eaton safe. The replay showed that the first baseman had the presence of mind to tag Eaton on the shoulder. John Farrell challenged Joyce’s ruling, which was overturned. Your browser does not support iframes. I can’t think of another time when Joyce missed a call at first. Can you? Wait, I have a vague recollection now that I think about it. Boston Gibbs, a six-year old boy from New York named after the Red Sox, got to visit Fenway as part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He and his family traveled to Boston by limousine. When asked how the ride and visit was he replied succinctly: “Good.” “Good” is not a word to describe the Red Sox current play. We aren’t so bad as to make an entire country cry (I’m looking your way, Brazil), but for Red Sox Nation this season is quite the comedown from 2013. Only Jackie Bradley, Jr. and A.J. Pierzynski tallied hits, both singles....
I can’t blame John Adams for drowsing. The game was delayed two hours and 28 minutes and then lasted until the 12th frame. The Red Sox have been having some issues with officiating but John Farrell did prevail in the fifth inning. He challenged the call that Mike Aviles was safe and the replay showed that Stephen Drew’s throw beat the runner to first. A.J. PIerzynski was ejected in the sixth inning by Quinn Wolcott after Brandon Workman walked Asdrubal Cabrera in four pitches. Pierzynski claimed it was because he disagreed with Wolcott about when the game started. Perhaps he made a comment about a small strike zone enabling a quicker game. A number of Red Sox players lengthened the game with their exploits. David Ortiz’s two-run homer in the sixth gave Boston the lead at the time. Brock Holt’s two-run single in the seventh tied the game 4-4. Relievers Burke Badenhop, Craig Breslow, Junichi Tazawa, and Koji Uehara stifled Cleveland’s offense for five innings. In the 12th Farrell aligned the infield defense so that five fielders guarded the basepaths. There was one out and runners at the corners so a double play would have sent the game into the...
It’s hard to place a finger on who or what is so unlikable about this team, but A.J. Pierzynski is as good a place to start as any. The catcher blew a kiss to the crowd and celebrated after his three-run homer in the first inning. With the various ailments plaguing the Red Sox Pierzynski was slotted in as the designated hitter in yesterday’s game. He acted as if he were Big Papi after his homer. It seemed like the necessary shakeup in the lineup prompted an offensive outburst. Boston scored five runs in the first inning against no less than the Rays’ ace David Price. But Jake Peavy couldn’t keep the Rays at bay and the game stood at a 5-5 tie for nine innings. When the Red Sox got runners on base in the 12th, 13th, and 14th innings there didn’t seem to be any excitement on the bench. The atmosphere was more like anxiety. James Loney led off the 15th with a single and was replaced on the basepaths by Cole Figueroa, who won Friday’s game for Tampa Bay. Brandon Guyer bunted Figueroa over on what should have been a sacrifice bunt. Instead the miscommunication between Andrew...
Baseball players can combine the elegance of a prima ballerina and the power of a kung fu warrior in a single play. Mike Napoli pirouetted to change course after he gathered Roger Bernadina’s batted ball and then fired down the baseline to double off Ryan Ludwick. Even Dustin Pedroia, purveyor of highlight reel-caliber twin killings himself, acknowledged Napoli’s defensive gem. Baseball players can also drop a catch, a routine catch they have made a thousand times, for no reason at all. Or trip and fall on an uneventful trot between first and second base. To be charitable to Brandon Phillips, perhaps he was distracted by the sight of A.J. Pierzynski sprawling on the basepath. Cincinnati secured an early lead in the third inning. Chris Heisey led off the frame with a line drive double off the left field wall. In NL fashion Zack Cozart sacrificed Heisey to second with a bunt to Will Middlebrooks. Skip Schumaker defied senior circuit conventions, his own limitations, and gravity with a two-run shot into the visitors’ bullpen. The Red Sox rallied in the sixth with David Ortiz’s line drive single arced to right to plate Jonathan Herrera and Mike Napoli’s double to the opposite...
The Red Sox fell behind early in the game with Clay Buchholz expending 26 pitches, giving up three runs, and muddling through seven Blue Jays hitters. On the other side of the ball Brandon Morrow wasn’t sharp himself. He walked two batters in both the first and second innings but escaped by virtue of double plays. The tide turned somewhat in the second inning. John Farrell challenged Marty Foster’s call that Jose Reyes was safe at first and after review the ruling was overturned. Farrell improved his challenge record to two out of six won. John Gibbons pulled Brandon Morrow out of the game in the third inning with two out even though he had a no-hitter in the works. None of his teammates wanted to disrupt Morrow’s mojo. Or perhaps it was because in the 2⅔ innings Morrow had walked eight batters. He allowed four consecutive bases on balls in the third that loaded the bases and then forced in the visitors’ first run of the game. Morrow was replaced by Chad Jenkins. Jenkins’s second pitch ended up in the Rogers Center’s left field seats thanks to A.J. Pierzynski’s grand slam home run. The Red Sox assumed a 5-3...
A.J. Pierzynski made an early impact on this game, tying it 2-2 in the second inning with his home run blast into the second deck. But it was the Yankees’ backstop, Brian McCann, that powered his offense to victory. McCann clobbered a two-run shot in the fourth to break the tie and added another two runs in the bottom of the sixth (below). He didn’t have occasion, however, to go toe-to-toe with Pierzynski after his counterpart’s home run as he did with Carlos Gomez. John Farrell is 0-for-2 in challenges. I found Umpire Ejection Fantasy League Portal a handy place to research challenges and ejections. Multiple angles showed that Xander Bogaerts was applying the tag on Dean Anna when he took his foot off the sack for a fraction of a second. MLB admitted that they were in error on the call. Farrell’s reaction was rather mildly worded: “It certainly raises questions on if they are getting the same feed we are, the consistency of the system. So, it makes you scratch your head a little bit on why he was called safe.” The Red Sox skipper definitely took a page out of Bill Belichick’s playbook. I can’t decide if...
Evan Meek took the mound in the eighth after Nelson Cruz put his team ahead 2-1 with a solo homer. The reliever did what every manager hates to see after securing the lead: give up a walk to start the frame. Meek might get a homework assignment from Buck Showalter. During spring training the Orioles skipper had minor leaguer Josh Hart write a report because Hart didn’t know who Frank Robinson was. If Meek researched about the percentage of times a lead runner scores he would find it’s 38% irrespective of reaching by a walk or single. Perhaps Meek was saved by his tenacious play on Mike Carp’s tapper. The reliever lost the handle on the ball at first but stuck with it and nailed Carp at first. Two players made their Red Sox debuts: Grady Sizemore and A.J. Pierzynski. Sizemore made his presence felt with a circuit clout in the fourth that tied the game. Pierzynski worked well with Jon Lester, guiding the southpaw through 7 innings with a line of 6 hits, 2 earned runs, 1 walk, and 8 strikeouts. Perhaps someday a Red Sox player will name Jean Cocteau’s “Orphée” as his favorite film, call Igor Stravinsky...
Perhaps in thanks to their respective battery mates for pitching so briskly catchers Jarrod Saltalamacchia and A.J. Pierzynski were the only players to clout extra base hits. The Red Sox backstop clubbed a solo shot in the third to give his team the lead and Pierzynski countered with a two-run home run in the seventh to snatch the advantage. Tim Wakefield and Gavin Floyd pitching against each other is a nightmare for advertisers. They both go to work quickly with few pauses in between pitches or batters. Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy must have been out of breath from trying to get in whatever promotional announcements they had to make over the course of this two hour and 10-minute game. Both starters pitched excellently Ozzie Guillen and Dustin Pedroia ribbed each other prior to the game. Guillen threatened to intentionally walk Pedroia if he came to the dish 0-3. Pedroia led off the ninth without a hit and flied out harmlessly to Alejandro De Aza, who drifted into the right-center gap to end Pedroia’s hitting streak at 25 games. Odds are that Pedroia’s best friend Andre Ethier, holder of a 30-game streak this season, immediately texted the Red Sox keystone...
The most enjoyable part of this game was David Ortiz tossing water and ice at A.J. Pierzynski when the White Sox backstop drifted towards the opposing dugout to glove Adrian Beltre’s pop foul in the second inning. Coming in second place was Ozzie Guillen teasing Ortiz on the designated hitter’s failed bunt attempt in the same frame by pretending he was furiously propelling a wheelchair. Instead of the game I turned to WGBH to watch the bottom half of Ken Burns’s “Tenth Inning.” The increasingly apparent use of steroids was discussed, replete with Bob Costas patting himself on the back for being the bellwether amongst the media in exposing the scandal. But we all dug the longball. Fans ignored the progressively more grotesque physiques of the players and focused instead on the gargantuan home runs leaping off the bats of the Mark McGwires, the Sammy Sosas, the Barry Bondses of the world. Burns also turned a loving look back to 2003 and 2004. I was shocked that I could still be angered by the sight of Grady Little trotting out to the mound to visit Pedro Martinez. Even if Martinez said, “If you take me out of the game right...
Game 137: September 7, 2009 Red Sox1L: Josh Beckett (14-6)79-58, 1 game losing streak White Sox5W: Mark Buehrle (12-7)H: Tony Pena (10)69-70, 1 game winning streak Highlights: One inning proved to be Beckett’s undoing. It started in the third with Jayson Nix standing stock-still when a dodgeable curveball hit him squarely. Home plate umpire Mark Carlson didn’t bother to call Nix on it and the third baseman took his base. With Jayson Nix on first Scott Podsednik continued to rake against Red Sox hurlers; his single up the middle was his seventh hit of the series. The pair of baserunners advanced on Alexei Ramirez’s sacrifice bunt. Dustin Pedroia, who was covering first, might have preferred that Kevin Youkilis fielded it rather than Josh Beckett, who fired a seed to beat the speedy shortstop.A.J. Pierzynski, he of the frosted coiffure, grounded out to short to plate Nix and tie the game. Beckett’s frustration seemed to get the better of him at this point: he walked Jermaine Dye on four pitches and broke off a curve that bounded past Jason Varitek far enough so that even Dye could advance a base.Mark Kotsay exacted revenged against his former team in the form of...
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Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library’s Sports Temples of Boston.