The Red Sox have won 5 straight games. In that span they have scored 56 runs, hit 2 grand slams as well as a total of 16 homers. Mike Napoli has been responsible for 4 of those homers.
The Sox won again on this Saturday afternoon and after the night ended, the stunning themes already established this September was still fully intact. Boston scored 13 runs in a 4 run victory in New York, they launched 3 home runs and above all will now put themselves in a position to extend their AL East lead to 8.5 games.
Saturday afternoon was a shootout of a baseball game and it began in the 2nd inning. With David Ortiz standing on second base, Napoli took an easy 3-0 pitch high and deep to center feild. Unlike Friday's grand slam, there was no question about this home run. When it landed, Boston had a 2-0 lead.
One inning later, they did it again as Johnny Gomes took a high changeup deep into the upper deck of Yankee Stadium. Whats better was that unlike Napoli's blast, when Gomes hit his there were already TWO men on base. By inning number 4, the Sox were up 9-3 but even that was not the end of New York’s troubles as one inning later, Xander Bogaerts airmailed a homer of his own to extend Boston's lead to 11-3. The homer was Bogaerts' first as a Big Leaguer.
At that point in the game, the night seemed over for New York. Dustin Pedroia was given the last 4 innings of the game off, countless pinch hitters were sent in for New York and a slew of pitching changes burned the Yankees early.
But nevertheless, as Napoli's slam showed us, Yankee Stadium leads can easily vanish faster than a strip of bacon on a breakfast plate.
The Bronx Bombers struck 4 times in the 6th then twice in the 8th all to cut Boston's lead to a margin of just 3 runs. But with his team not willing to relinquish such a strong effort, Napoli struck again drilling a solo shot to center field to seal the victory for Boston.
But Mike Napoli was not the only big story line of this game. After finally gaining the run support he so desperately needed, John Lackey was credited with his 9th win of the year. But it was clearly not his best effort. Lackey did strikeout 8 but allowed 8 hits and 7 earned runs. He also walked 3. Saturday was not Lackey's day but in the end he was finally credited with a win.
This win extends Boston's Al East lead to 8 games and has dropped their magic number for clenching the AL East title to just 13 wins. Boston has a 99.9%chance of making the playoffs and to this point the possibility of Boston snapping their 5 year pennant drought is beginning to look more and more like a fact.
0 comments:
Post a Comment