Boston 7, Texas 6

An ugly win is better than a beautiful loss, and the Red Sox put together a win of hideous ugliness last night.

• The starter put the team behind in the top of the first. Again. And allowed six runs over six innings.
• Serious question - would anyone rather see Wakefield start on Sunday than Matsuzaka?
• The pitching staff walked nine Rangers on the night, in addition to allowing eight hits and nine (9) stolen bases without a caught-stealing. They're lucky that they managed to hold the Rangers to six runs on the night.
• The left-handed power-hitters, Drew and Ortiz, continue to struggle, going 0-7 on the night, and are now hitting .140/.237/.244/.481 for the season.
• Francona pulled out all the stops last night, emptying the bench, managing as if it were a post-season game. Everyone played, as Victor Martinez was run for and Josh Reddick and David Ortiz were hit for.
• Adrian Beltre put up another 1-5 and is now hitting a not-quite-Drew-and-Ortiz-but-still-dismal .286/.294/.347/.641.
• The Hero of the night was a 31 year-old career minor leaguer who wasn't on the 40-man roster when the day started, now getting a cup of coffee with his fourth team in the big leagues, whose spectacular night brought his career major league line up to .242/.285/.362/.647 in 158 plate appearances.
• The McDonald HR in the eighth tied the game only because the umpires blew a call in the sixth, when they missed the fact that Josh Reddick's double to left (which Josh Hamilton should have caught) bounced into the stands and should have been called a ground-rule double, holding Jeremy Hermida at 3rd base in a 6-3 game. Instead, the run was allowed to stand and McDonald's HR in the eighth tied it.

There were a couple of bright spots, though (other than just winning the game.)

• Kevin Youkilis has been bad for the past week and a half. He was 2-4 on the night.
• Victor Martinez has been bad for the past week and a half. He was 3-4 on the night.
• They DL'ed Cameron and Ellsbury, bringing up two more outfielders, and sparing us any more of Bill Hall in center field.

So a couple of good hitters had decent nights, and they got a miracle career night from a career minor leaguer and the benefit of a bad call by the umpires and some poor defense by the Rangers, and they managed to scrape out a come-from-behind one run victory. They still did not play well. But a win is better than a loss.


One of the things to keep in mind about the 4-9 start is this - the Red Sox have played very badly, but they've done it, in 10 of the first 13 games, against really good teams. Teams that have been ready and able to take advantage of the Red Sox' mistakes. There are a lot of stretches on the schedule where the team could play like this for two weeks and go 7-6 or 6-7 instead of 4-9. They happened to play very badly during a stretch where they could not get away with it. We saw that last night, as the Sox' performance didn't improve much, but the team that they were playing was not as good as Minnesota or New York or Tampa, and they came away with an ugly win instead of another hideous loss.