Mighty Mike: Mike Carp rips game winning single in 8th inning - Red Sox drop Orioles 4-3

For 6 innings last night, it seemed that John Lackey was destined to be handed another difficult truth that he had become all to acquainted with of late. He hurls a very strong game, keeps his pitch count down, earn runs hovering around 3, but still the offence working for him cannot even break 1 run and when the night ends, he has no victory credited to his name.

For 6 innings it looked like that was the case but as has also been true in this 2013 season the Boston Red Sox were not so contempt at letting this one slip through their fingers.

As it stood, Lackey came to the mound at the end of the night having only allowed 3 runs on 7 hits. He had thrown just 92 pitches in over 7 innings of play but despite all this, he spent the majority of the night loosing 3-1. Why? Because of  mighty man named Chris Davis. With 47 home runs on the year, when  Davis saw Lackey leave a first pitch strike over the middle of the plate, the MLB's strongest hitter made him pay by belting a long ball over the monster to give Baltimore a dominant 3-1 lead.

But the deficit would soon evaporate as after Stephan Drew led off the 7th inning with a slicing double, Dustin Pedroia came to bat just a few batters later with Drew on 2nd and Jacoby Ellsbury on third. It was the 7th inning, Lackey had pitched so well but instead of leading the game like he should have, the Red Sox were down by 2 with just 2 and a 3rd at bats left in the game. Boston's pitcher watched intently from the bench. But even in this situation that could likely produce yet another loss or at best a no decision for Lackey, John was not fixating on statistics.

"I would like to have more wins than I have right now, but that's not the goal," said Lackey, who is 8-11 with a 3.19 ERA. "The goal is for the team to win games."

It seems strange but actually it is an obvious pattern. According to HIS win loss record, John Lackey is 8-11 with 5 no decisions on the year. If you subtract those no decisions and simply look at the record of the RED SOX in games that Lackey has started, Boston is 11-13. That can only mean that the large majority of those no decisions that turned into wins for the Sox went down as comebacks...which is exactly what happened last night. 

On the first pitch he saw in that crucial 2 out 7th inning at bat, Dustin Pedroia lined a screaming single into left field. Drew scored easily from third and after Jacoby Ellsbury had stolen second base he would come around from second to tie the game at 3. The comeback was in full swing. 

Amidst a double switch to start the inning and a pitching change after out one, the Sox would drop the Orioles in order come inning number 8 meaning that they were all fully charged to take on their second to last at bat of the game. 

Now things would not immediately get off to a good start as back to back strikeouts made it so that Jarrod Saltilamaccia came to bat in the 8th he was the one man standing between the Orioles and the 9th inning. But Salty didn't care. After a spectacular at bat that culminated with Saltilamaccia's working a full count, he got all of an 89 mile per hour cutter driving it high and far to left field. 

Red Sox fans jumped to the edge of their seats and NESN play by play announcer: Don Orsillo screamed the question all of Red Sox nation was asking at that point in time. "Dose it have enough?" 

At first it seemed like it didn't have enough but as the ball continued to rise one could picture that the next words out of the mouth of the voice of the Red Sox on NESN would be something along the lines of "GONE!" But then, at the lest second, the ball dropped just enough so that it firmly collided with a the Green Monster mere feet from its top. So here we were, the game was still tied and Jarrod Saltilamaccia had one more double in a season that had already yielded 34 for him. Salty is no sprinter so it seemed that in some way shape or form that Baltimore would eventually get out of the 8th with no damage done to the scoreboard. 

But after Tommy Hunter intentionally walked Stephan Drew, the Red Sox dugout was faced with a tough decision. The Red Sox had to get a hit here but with rookie Xander Bogarts set to come to bat, they cold not afford to allow nerves to come into play. According to Bogarts, manager John Farrell told him that if Drew walked that he would be pinch hit for. 

"I appreciated that he gave me a heads-up," Bogaerts said.

Fans booed as Bogarts walked out of the on deck circle only to be replaced by veteran: Mike Carp, but Xander was corgil. 

"Good luck." He supposedly said while shaking Carp's hand. Weather he needed Bogarts' wishing it or not, luck was on Carp's side as he soon weakly lined an RBI single over the dive of 3rd basemen Manny Muchado. 

"It's how we work as a team." Carp said. 

The Red Sox would go on to retire the Orioles in order in the top of the 9th inning, winning their 4th straight game, their 3rd straight series and putting them in a position to earn their first sweep in months.