On April 15th, Shane Victorino hammered a walk off single deep to center field bringing light to a day that, less than 3 hours later would be subjected to a kind of terrible terrorism the United States of America had been able to avoid for over a decade. Over the next week, the Sox won 7 straight games and never looked back: kind of. By the end of the month of April, Boston was the best team in baseball yet once the calender turned to May so did Boston's luck.
Coming into yesterday's game the Sox were 12-12 in the month and has sunken down to 3rd in the division a position that they had been unwillingly been forced to become acquainted with. Yet while for 15 days after the Victorino walk off and the following marathon attacks, the Sox carried their dominated the leauge, when Jacoby Ellsbury completed a wonderful Red Sox comeback yesterday, one couldn't help but hope that that will kick off another streak.
Coming into the bottom of the 9th inning, the Red Sox were down 3 runs to Cleveland and had struggled to do well anything all game. Yet with their back against the wall and the driving motivation not to surrender yet another win to their former manager Terry Francona powering their engine, Dustin Pedroia came up to bat in the bottom of the ninth and skillfully milked a crucial walk out of Cleveland's pitching. Now with with Pedroia on base and his mind, cleansed of any nerves of inhibitions up to the plate came David Ortiz desperate to prolong a game that at this point seemed like a lost cause. Swinging on the first pitch he was shown, Papi was soon sprung down towards first base as the ball exploded off his bat and soared hard off the left field "Green Monster". Jumping on his horse, Pedroia flew off the first base bag at first contact rounding second before the ball even got down. With Ortiz on his heals and the crowd roaring with delight, Ortiz let up at seconds as Pedroia raced for home beating the throw from left field without even falling into the slide.
Now things get interesting. 1 out, 2 runs down and with Ortiz on second base. David stinking Ortiz attempts to steal a base. With third unmanned, and the what seemed like the entire Cleveland team looking the other way, Ortiz took his chances breaking down the line and making it to third before anyone had even noticed him. David Ortiz, a 6 foot 4, 230 pound DH had stolen just his 13th base of his career, and mercy was this game getting interesting. As the inning went on, Johnny Gomes drove in Papi and slowly advanced towards third meaning that when Jose Iglesias stepped up to bat with runners on second and third and milked a walk to load the bases, the pressure was all on Jacoby Ellsbury.
"We were gonna fight to the end, heck, we got a lot of heart." Ellsbury said following the chaos of what happened next. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and the bases loaded, the acclaimed center fielder took a pitch over the center of the plate drilling it off the monster to give the Sox their first walk-off win in over a month.
On April 15th, the Boston Red Sox hit a walk off home-run kicking off a string of victories and dominating triumphs that carried their city out of the smoke filled tears of Copley square and gun shot riddled nights of the Watertown shootouts and ensuing lock-down, and brought their team to the top of the league. Yet while all streaks must end, 40 days after a city united and followed their team to the high road, Jacoby Ellsubury drilled a 2 run double off the center field wall reviving a streak and filling ole Fenway with a cacophony of joy we hope to once against become acquainted with.
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