A Colossal Red Sox Collapse
The Red Sox Best Relief Pitchers Were Blasted
The Yankees scored six runs in the eighth inning against two of baseball's best relief pitchers, trimming Boston's lead over the Tigers to 8 games in the wild card chase.
The Boston Red Sox lost a full game to the Detroit Tigers in the wild card race when their arch rivals, the New York Yankees, scored 6 runs in the eighth inning last night to overcome a 7-2 Red Sox lead. The defensively challenged Jason Giambi, who made three poor plays in the field but was charged with only one error, led off the fateful eighth inning with his 14th home run of the season off Boston’s “eighth inning specialist.” Hideki Okajima. Robinson Cano followed with his own home run off the Boston lefty, cutting the deficit to three runs. Switch hitter Melky Cabrera, the first right handed batter Okajima faced, then walked, and Johnny Damon doubled Melky to third, bringing the potential tying run to the plate.
Boston's Mariano Rivera?
Terry Francona panicked. With a 5-½ game and only 15 games remaining for the Yankees after the one being played, Francona wanted to finish them off. In came Jonathan Papelbon to face Derek Jeter, who greeted the pitcher Boston thinks is the answer to Mariano Rivera with a ringing single to right on the first pitch to plate Cabrera and move Damon to third. The potential lead run was now at bat in the person of Bobby Abreu.
The Real Mariano
Abreu took a strike and then hit a blast over center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury’s head, scoring Damon with the Yankees’ sixth run and Jeter with the game-tying seventh run. Abreu wound up at third, bringing up Alex Rodriguez. Papelbon and Alex are old friends. On June 4, Alex hit a game winning home off Jonathan in the ninth inning to give the Yankees a much-needed win. This time, Alex hit Papelbon’s 0-1 pitch on a line to center for a single, scoring Abreu with what turned out to be the winning run. Luis Vizcaino pitched a scoreless eighth inning, and the Yankees’ version of Jonathan Papelbon, the real Mariano Rivera, retired the Red Sox in the ninth to add to the Red Sox legend.
Sox Lead Tigers by 8 Games
The Red Sox now lead the Yankees by 4 ½ games with a magic number of 11, but the Red Sox know that they have not had the best record in the baseball since 1946, and have not won the Eastern Division crown since 1995. The Sox lead the Tigers by 8 games with each team having 14 remaining games. The magic number for the Tigers to be unable to catch Boston is 7.
Hardly Time to Panic?
After the Yankees’ win, Joe Torre made the perfect comment. "We lucked out. That eighth inning was incredible. The only thing predictable in this ballpark is the unpredictable." Boston center fielder Covelli Loyce (Coco) Crisp tried to put things in perspective, telling the media that “We're still up by 4½, not down by 4½, so it's hardly time to panic." He sounded a lot like some fellows who played for the Red Sox in 1978 and some others who played for them in on October 25, 1986, because history shows that many times, those who tell others that it’s not the time to panic have already panicked.
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