Lester dominates, Gomes homers, Red Sox win 4-2: Game Recap

Since the All-Star break only 5 teams have done it. 'It' being beating the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Well, that us until today. At 7:21PM, the Boston Red Sox felled a baseball team riding one of the most dominant streaks in recent sports history. They beat the Dodgers by a margin of 4-2. 

Beginning the drama on just the second batter of the night, things got interesting as Shane Victorino did something he has become notorious for in just this single season alone. Not making any move to get out of the way of a pitch. For the 10th time in 2013 he was hit by a pitch taking his base and soon becoming a 1 out base-runner in the 1st inning. 

By the time Johnny Gomes came to bat 2 batters later, Victorino had scored, Pedroia stood at second and Mike Napoli had just drove in an RBI single and was at 1st. As for Johnny Gomes, he did not wait long to drive home what would go down as the game winning run. Taking a first pitch fastball right over the middle of the plate Gomes lined the ball high and deep to a distant left field wall. In just a matter of seconds Gomes had belted his 11th home run of the year and in turn had put the Red Sox up 4-0. 

Now the score would stay that way all the way until the 8th inning. A large part of that was the pitching of John Lester. Through the first 3 innings, Lester had not allowed a hit and despite allowing a lead-off walk to Yasiel Puig a few nifty double plays by those behind him meant that by the end of the night, Lester had thrown just 101 pitches in 7.1 innings. He dominated allowing just 3 hits on the entire night and just 1 through 6 innings. 

But no matter how good he was, things got interesting in the bottom of the 8th inning. After Lester earned an out via the pop fly, Lester walked Carl Crawford and was yanked from the game. But in the end, some may have a case to say that that might not have been the best idea. All night long, the Sox had been dominant at turning the double play as 3 of the 4 batters Lester had walked had been doubled off already. But still John Farrell made a managerial decision and well he may have screwed up. 

Junichi Tazawa came into the game and threw just 10 pitches before, after a single and a strike out he, like Lester was replaced by bullpen specialist Craig Breslow. But even that did not work out as Breslow allowed a 2 run double that suddenly made this a ballgame...that is until Farrell made up for whatever mistakes he had made to that point in the game.  

All season long, Koji Uehara has been the saving grace in nearly each of the now 76 wins the Sox have accumulated this season...and he was no different Saturday night. Koji hurled a perfect inning and a third to seal the win for the Sox and put them in a position to do what no team has done in almost 2 months. Win a series against the Dodgers. 

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The not so cheep seats: Why Boston's Sports teams are making us broke

The average American household earns approximately 48,000 dollars a year.

The average 26 year old American earns approximately 20,000 dollars a year.

Over 90% of New England and upstate New York's are loyal to Boston sports teams.

Red Sox tickets are the most expensive in baseball.

Life in the cheap seats. 20 years ago, it is what you did. Walk up to the Box office buy a ticket and worship the baseball, football, or hockey team that you grew up loving. It was the way life was and it was how Fenway became America’s most beloved ball park.

Through thick and thin, the fans never died down, they always came back and cheered so loud their throats burned like fire by the end of the night. They cheered their team to victory and watched every moment of

the famed decade of dominance that brought this town a Stanley Cup, 2 World Series, 3 Super Bowl titles and appearances and 2 more in 2007 and 2011 respectively.

Through thick and thin they were there. They filled TD Garden time and time again even after the Bruins blew a 3-0  series lead against the Flyers. They packed Gillette Stadium following the David Tye Ree catch that ended New England’s bid for a 19-0 season and they returned after so many Red Sox playoff losses to the Yankees, only to see the Sox do the unthinkable and win it all in ’04.

For 820 games, Fenway Park was packed to capacity as Boston Sports fans flocked to the ballpark and helped build the largest sellout streak in sports history.

Following the Marathon Bombing’s Boston fans sung their hearts out at TD Garden rallying around an aucapella national anthem as they watched their Bruins glide to the cup finals for the second time in 3 years.

Boston sports fans are often labeled as the most loyal in all of professional sports but while they won’t say it, a clear question still rises from this glowing orb that is our city of championships. Are the same teams that pick these fans up from the ashes of bombings and defeat also ripping them off?  

In the year 1991, you could go to a non-divisional Red Sox game and on average pay just over 10 dollars a ticket. At that point, that price was already 2 dollars more than the MLB average but by 1995, that difference had grown…to almost 4 dollars. Then by 2001, the Sox had successfully increased average ticket prices to almost 37 dollars…an increases of about 250% in just 10 years. 12 years later, prices have still continued to rise. According to the Red Sox box office, the average price for a Tuesday night Fenway game between the Sox and Orioles is….79 dollars. By comparison, the price for a game against those same Orioles at Yankee stadium would cost just between 35 and 40 dollars for second deck seating and as little as 15 dollars for bleacher seating.

But in the world of high ticket prices, the Boston Red Sox are not the only villain. In fact when it comes to insane ticket prices, the New England Patriots may be the kings.

According to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED writer: Greg Cohen's breakdown of the Patriots home games against AFC opponents, the large majority of average prices per game is between 290$ and 390$ with the cheapest seats often sitting around 100$ and 150$. I don’t know about you but in my book 150$ for a sporting event is not ‘cheep’.

By comparison, those prices are almost double of that of the Miami Dolphins average of just over 120$. Crazy right?

So by now I assume you have gotten the point. In order to bring a family of 4 to Gillette Stadium you need to fork over get this, 1,500$. Boston’s sports are overpriced but why?

If the Patriot’s manage to sell out each of their 3 games against AFC visitors (almost always the highest priced games), they will haul in 72,240,000$ that amounts to just 61% of the Patriots payroll as the mega salaries of guys like Brady and Wilfork account for almost 30 million dollars right then and there.

When you look at the Red Sox earnings, they haul in about 2,923,000$ per game. When multiplied by 81 (the number of home games in a season), the Sox have the yearly capacity to earn 236,763,000$ a year solely off of ticket prices. Those 236million dollars account for almost double what the Sox pay their players and staff.

But for baseball fans part of the thrill of going to a pro game goes beyond simply getting in.

Weeks before the game, you want a jersey, something to wear to the game. According to Amazon.com, a site notorious for selling products for well, less than the pro shop, a Dustin Pedroia replica Jersey costs nearly 50$. A baseball cap…25$.

Now statistically speaking, yeah the Sox do not get 100% of those income’s earned by Amazon but they do if you are foolish enough to buy your memorabilia within the walls of Fenway or Gillette.

According to a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED report, in order to buy a hot dog, prime ticket, and  ball cap at Fenway Park you have to pay 235$. That number almost doubles if you are in Gillette. It costs134$ to buy a Tom Brady Jersey, and well we have already talked about ticket prices.

“They’re kind of selfish.” 8 year old Keegan Antelman said when I asked him how he felt about high ticket prices.

Now granted the wonderful thought process that is ‘kid logic’ can be flawed but the premise that this 3^rdgrader outlined reigns supreme.

Do the Boston Red Sox really need almost 300 million dollars a year? Long story short, no. Why you may ask. Because they didn’t need 300 million dollars 10 years ago and things have not changed that much in such a short amount of time. 

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Leave it ALL on the feild...and then leave a little more: A look at the insane devotion of Jarrod Saltilamaccia and Dustin Pedroia

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Even coaches of 8 year old baseball teams know this word very well: hustle. 

It's a simple concept that is ever present while ever amplified in every level of sports.  You run as hard as you can, you dive with as little regard for you own health as possible. In baseball, you slide or dive, in soccer you sprint full out for an hour and a half and in football and hockey well, you break your ribs, you puncture your lung but still you play.

In youth sports it’s called hustle, in the world of pro sports it’s called sacrifice but for the Boston Red Sox this elusive form of devotion is simply called ‘what Jarrod Saltilamaccia and Dustin Pedroia do’.

Between the two of them, it is clear that there are really a select few teams in this MLB that have the kind of guys that the Red Sox. For Dustin Pedroia, his sacrifice shows in the constant line of sprawling stops that he constantly shows on a daily basis.

For Jarrod Saltilamaccia, his moments of sacrifice can be fairly captured by the sheer numbers that dominate his star sheet.

For Saltilamaccia his first taste of big league action came in 2003 when he was drafted 36^th overall by the Atlanta Braves. As it stood, Saltilamaccia would spend 2 years in the minors batting .314 and.373 in single A and double A respectively.

But before long, he was in the big leagues joining the Braves in 2007 and notching 47 starts before they needed to clear him off their roster. The man with the longest name in the history of baseball was either going back to the minors or to another team. The Texas Ranger’s made sure that the fate ‘Salty’ was treated to was the latter of those two.  In 2007, Jarrod Saltalamaccia was traded to the Texas Rangers.

But before long, Salty was a Red Sox and by 2011 he was once again a top starter. With Jason Varitek still firmly instituted as Boston’s catcher, Saltilamaccia admittedly spent 2011 as a student to his veteran teammate.

Saltilamaccia played 103 games in 2011 but after the September collapse that left his team in disgrace his workload threatened to increase even more after Varatek announced his retirement on March 1^st 2012.  

In 2012 Salty started 121 games as the struggling Kelley Shoppach made it painful for Sox fans to see Salty sitting on the bench.  121 games is a lot, almost 75% of the season in fact but in this 2013 season, Jarrod Saltilamaccia had blown it all away and is on pace not only top that career high in games set in 2011 but possibly climb onto the all-time leader board of appearances by a Red Sox catcher in one season.

To date, Saltilamaccia has started 100 games and with 33 games left in the season he is mathematically projected to bring his season start total to 127. But for the Sox that branch of statistics will likely be influenced by a factor that cannot be captured by any sort of mathematical computation.

With the Sox, Rays, Orioles and even Yankees now knotted in a pennant race for the history books many of the “big games” that now dominate the list of Boston’s 33 matchups between now and the end of the year will likely fall on the shoulders of Jarrod Saltilamaccia meaning that the possibility of a 130 start season might not be that far off.

But workload dose not even matter if you cannot produce on a consistent basis. Now more than ever, Saltilamaccia has done just that.

“There was a stretch there I was getting kind of sore. When I got to Houston and Kansas City I was pretty beat,” said Saltalamacchia, in a WEEI interview on August 20^th “But I want to be in every single day. I’m not a guy who is going to take a day off.”

Even while playing 29 fewer games than many other players on the Sox, Saltalamaccia leads the Red Sox in doubles with 34. He has notched together countless hitting streaks, the most recent of which spanning 9 games. He has belted 10 home runs but for mighty Saltilamaccia, while his offence is treasured, his pitchers appreciate a far more crucial facet of the game. 

He is dominant, in games that he has caught, the Sox have a winning percentage of over .600.

Pitchers like wins and Saltilamaccia helps guide them to them. It is as simple as that.

No what Saltilamaccia does is spectacular in it of itself. The sheer numbers that he complies, the unthinkable piles of starts and onslaughts of doubles show to the fullest what he can do. But for Dustin Pedroia there is no kind of number that can capture the facet of Pedroia’s game that makes him so wonderfully skilled: effort.  

He had played his entire career to date with the Red Sox and will likely end it that way after he signed a monster multi-million dollar contract a few months back. He has played 128 games this year, missing just one of his team’s 129.

But like I said before, much of Dustin Pedroia’s game cannot be adequately represented by simple numbers.

His swing: violent and crushing. He has an almost non-existent leg kick meaning that he swings from the shoulders whipping his arms, legs and hips in a brutal speedy fashion. Such a swing does not agree with the human body. Such a swing takes a toll on a human’s body after 3,898 at bats. You get hurt, and Dustin Pedroia is no different.  

He breaks thumbs, damages ankles but still he plays. In 2012 he broke his thumb but was back in action within 11 games, a spectacularly short healing time for a bone broken in half.  1 year later Pedroia broke bones once again when midway through an 8^th inning affair with the Yankees, he fouled a ball hard off his left foot.

He fell to the ground writhing in obvious pain but in the end after X-Rays came back showing that Pedroia could play…he did.

"Pedey's a gamer, man," said Red Sox outfielder Shane Victorino. "You never see that guy back down from a challenge. It's impressive. He wanted to stay in that at-bat. I sure it was killing him and he was hurting, but that just shows who he is and what he is. It's impressive. I'll take him on my team any day."

Dustin Pedroia and Jarrod Saltilamaccia. Two men, two positions, two styles of play all with one thing in common: commitment, hustle and above all…sacrafice.

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Red Sox have a field day in San Francisco: 12-1 final

To quote Tom Caron's  after Boston's uplifting victory Wednesday afternoon "The Red Sox needed this one."

The Red Sox had gone 6 and 9 through their last 15 games and had lost each of their last 4 series. Since August 5th, they had gone 5 and 7 on the road and their pitching was stalling. Whats worse, last night's starter: Felix Dubront came into the night having thrown just 8 innings through his last two starts and allowing 9 earned runs.

Things did  not look good but in the blink of an eye, that all changed.

After kicking off their offensive game with a double in the 1st inning the Sox fell in frame number one leaving Jacoby Ellsbury standing at second. Felix Dubront would then work his way around a lead off single with a nifty run down situation between Stephan Drew and David Ortiz boxing in Giant batter: Andrew Torres to clear the base-paths and snag the first out of the inning. He got out of the 1st with the game still waiting for its first run.

Now by the end of inning number two this one still looked close. After Will Middlebrooks drove in 2 tallies with a 2 out 2 run homer to left field, the Giants returned in the bottom of the second and quikely cut Boston's lead to just 1 run with a long ball of their own. But for the Giants that's about where their good fortune ended.

Felix Dubront would dominate for the better part of the night, ripping down the next 8 batters he faced following the San Francisco home run.

"I spent the last four days working on throwing the ball down in the zone," Doubront said. "I was able to do that and go with my stuff. I was working fast to get the hitters to swing at my pitch."

John Farrell soon backed him up: "once you get settled into the flow of the game he [Dubront] is great...we gave him a lead, he used all his pitches and he was able to carry his rhythm through the 8th inning" 

But while Dubront was dominant in holding the Giants down, a huge part of at lest the first 6 runs Boston scored was the deficiencies in San Fransisco's starter: Barry Zito. Once a back to back all star, the slow pitching Zito was not helping the Giants in any way. Zito pitched just 3 and 2 thirds innings, and never broke 90 miles per hour with a single one of his 85 pitches. At first it seemed that Sox hitters were off-put by the lack of movement in Zito's fastball but nevertheless, that didn't last long. Riding RBI's by Johnny Gomes, Shane Victorino, and Dustin Pedroia, the Sox raked up 6 runs against Zito, effectively putting the game out of reach for San Francisco before they even notched their 4th at bat.  

"Any time you get hits out of the top of the lineup good things can happen," Victorino said. "We just have to keep it going." Victorino said regarding the 3 RBI's he notched yesterday.

Middlebrooks was also happy with his performance. "I was surprised," Middlebrooks said. "He went fastball away and I thought he would stay away. He left a slider up in the zone and I put a good swing on it." he said when asked about his home run. 

The Red Sox would tack on 6 more runs before all was said and done. A big part of those 6 runs was a 3 run bomb by Stephan Drew in the 7th inning. With runners on 1st and 2nd, Drew got ahead of an early pitch driving it out to right field and belting his 10th homer of the year. 

"On the heels of last night it was good to come out with the day game and get a win like this." John Farrell said. 

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Ryan Dempster suspended 5 games for plunking A-Rod: Reactions of Dempster, Farrell and others - Joe Girardi 'that baseball is a weapon'

Let’s face it, with one pitch, Ryan Dempster reopened the glorious sores that are the Red Sox Yankees rivalry.

It had been years since the last time things had spilled over like they did Sunday night and much like the Varatek brawl, the slap, and well everything else that happened in that fight filled 2004 season, Dempster's hitting of A-Rod will stand for years...good or bad. 

But unfortunately for Ryan Dempster, that claim to fame will come with a cost. Even after intensely denying that he intended to hit the Yankee's 3rd basemen, the MLB didn't care or thought otherwise. Why? Because early this morning, Boston's right handed starter was suspended for 5 games. 

Countless Yankees agreed with the suspension. 

"Whether you like me or hate, that was wrong," Rodriguez told reporters Sunday night. "That was unprofessional and silly. It was kind of a silly way to get someone hurt on your team as well." 

"You can't start throwing at people," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Sunday night, and reiterated Tuesday morning. "Lives, people have had concussions; lives are changed by getting hit by pitches. …
That baseball is a weapon. It's not a tennis ball. It's not an incredi-ball that's soft. It's a weapon, and it can do a lot of damage to someone's life, and that's why I was so upset about it. You can express your opinion and be upset with someone, but you just can't start throwing baseballs at people. It's scary. …Whether I agree with everything that's going on, you do not throw at people and you don't take the law into your own hands. You don't do that." 

Dempster was not ejected from the game but was issued a warning. Following the conclusion of a 9-6 loss to the Yankees, he insisted that he "was just trying to pitch inside." Now it's pretty obvious that that statement is not true but nevertheless, many  fans across the game of baseball, insist that the 5 game suspension is too harsh. 

In fact ESPN's Sports Nation fan poll actually put a number on that assumption when after over 1,000 answers to a question: What do you think of Ryan Dempster's 5-game suspension for plunking A-Rod, 57% of voters thought it was too harsh. 

If Dempster immediately accepts the suspension, he will be eligible to pitch again next Tuesday in game one of an Orioles series next week. This suspension will probably not effect much of Boston's pitching rotation. 

Too see the results of the Sports Nation poll click here

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Lester dominant in win over Giants: Sox blank San Francisco...7-0

The baseball gods have mercy. 

After 2 and a half weeks of torturous .384 winning percentage baseball, the Red Sox added an additional victory to their win column last night...and they did it in rather convincing fashion.  

After flying out to San Francisco early yesterday morning, Jon Lester backstopped a dominant 8 and a 3rd innings for Boston, striking out 3 walking 2 and giving up just 6 hits on no runs scored against.  

"I mean, my motivation is kind of the same every game," said Lester. "I want to try to finish every game that I can. Obviously these guys had a long day. [I was] fortunate enough to come in yesterday. I think for us to come in with that travel schedule, which guys aren't normally accustomed to, and do what we did tonight, it's big for us." 

As Lester highlighted in that statement, he was one of the few Red Sox who did not wait until yesterday morning to fly out. While the rest of his team went home after their crushing 9-6 loss to the Yankees, Lester went right to the airport and was in San Francisco by 4am California time. But by that point, the rest of his team wasn't even in the air as they would not hit the sky's until 10:20 eastern time. They did not touchdown until 1:20 California time. 

"Anytime you have these long travel days, you always look to the starting pitcher to keep the game under control," said manager John Farrell. "Not knowing how you're going to come out physically from an offensive standpoint, how many different times you can push to get an offense started, he gave us just that."

The Red Sox were tired but Lester was un-phased as he took out the first 9 batters San Fran put up in order. 4 innings later, Lester was still in the game and had allowed just 2 hits. But by that point, good pitching  was not the only story.  

After the top of the 7th inning the Sox were up 5-0 all ripping apart a former Cy Young winner in Tim Lincicum. 

"We played great," said Dustin Pedroia, "Jon, he was unbelievable. It seems like we were barely on defense. He was getting us back in swinging the bat. Guys had great at-bats. It was a big win."

Last night's Boston win was crucial in the pennant race. Tampa Bay won 4-3 over the Orioles meaning that with just 1 game separating the Sox and their south Florida rivals, should Boston have lost last night, their division lead would be gone. 

Now on a normal night, Lester probably would have been allowed to stay in the game to finish it off, a wish that he made clear by yelling it after finishing off the 8th. But after Ryan Dempser's plunking of A-Rod on Sunday he will likely be suspended meaning that with Lester already throwing over 100 pitches, Farrell was not ready to tire out a guy who is finally looking like and ace again. 

"Jon was exactly what we needed -- we needed a strong pitching performance on a night when we could use a guy to go deep in the game and he gave us just that," Farrell said. "An outstanding effort on his part. A lot of strikes, I thought his fastball was sharp, it was powerful and he mixed in some breaking balls and particularly his cutter was powerful tonight."

Jon was exactly what we needed. 

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Hero or selfish monster? : Discussing the morality of Ryan Dempster's hitting of A-Rod

 John Farrell and Dempster himself both insist that the Sox pitcher didn't 'intend' to bean Alex Rodriguez last night but nevertheless, we all know he did. 

After the Yankees went down without a run in the 1st inning, the sent Alex Rodriguez to the plate in the top of the second with no outs, nobody on and with Boston leading 2-0. What happened next well, one watching the game could judge just by the reaction of the crowd. In the blink of an eye, the boos emanating from A-Rod's sheer presence on the feild turned to cheers roaring in favor of Ryan Dempster's pitch behind Alex Rodriguez. Through the reminder of the at bat, the boos never returned as Dempster continued to pound the inside corner of the plate.

Those cheers never died down but they came to a climax on the 4th pitch when Dempster finally made contact with A-Rod, catching him on the elbow guard. A-Rod simply stood there. Dempster betrayed no emotion while home play umpire Brian O-Nora issued warnings to Dempster as well as both benches (which soon emptied). 

But for Yankees manager: Joe Girardi, warnings were not enough. He came flying out of the dugout, fists flying, spit racing out of his mouth all while asking, demanding that Dempster be tossed from the game. When all ended, the only person going home early was Girardi himself. 

The Red Sox would go on to lose the game by a margin of 9-6. 

                                                                                           

But regardless of the score, nearly 24 hours after the adrenaline of watching baseball's most hated man get drilled with a 90 mile per hour fastball has subsided, one begins to wonder many things. If Dempster had not plunked Rodriguez would Boston have won the game? Did A-Rod deserve it? And in a question with an obvios answer: did Dempster intend to hit him.

Well we know the answer to one of those questions. Fact is, in the court of public opinion, A-Rod did deserve getting hit. He has obviously been cheating, he hasn't really hired the most admirable of followers and above all he has ratted out his own teammates, a rule that is far from unwritten among MLB clubhouses. It seems that every day something new has come out about Alex Rodriguez and for Ryan Dempster he obviously wanted to add his own chapter...in the form of a hefty bruise on the Yankee 3rd basemen's arm. 

But in an answer to the 3rd question posed earlier Dempster defied what we all knew. He insisted that the hit by pitch was an accident. 

“No, I was just trying to pitch him inside,” he said. 

“Regarding the first at-bat to Rodriguez, much like Ryan has done many, many starts, that he establishes his fastball, and there are hitters in a given lineup he’s got to establish it in,” Farrell said in a similar tone. 

But their firm denial soon turned to a far less rigid collection of words. 

“I don’t know that he hit him on purpose. I don’t think he did,” Farrell said. 

But while Farrell was relatively cool headed, he understood the rage coming from Joe Girardi.

“Do I understand why Joe was upset? If it’s one of my players, yeah, I’m going to interpret a certain way on our side as well.”

But back to that first question.. That being: if Dempster had not beaned A-Rod would Boston have won the game? Well, no doubt about it, the anger and thirst for retribution sure ignited New York. They would tie the game in that second inning then take the lead in the 3rd. From then on, the Sox would fight back and eventually jump out to a 6-3 lead going into the 6th inning. The Sox were winning and beating up on CC Sabathia. The game seemed over until once again A-Rod's excellence made it a game again.

Once again leading off an inning, Dempster well, didn't try to take Rodriguez' head off and in the end, A-Rod would get the last laugh belting a solo shot to center field kicking off what would become a 4 run game changing inning. 

“I knew he got it when he hit it,” Dempster said about. “I’m sure any time any hitter gets hit by a pitch, when you hit a home run the next time up it always probably feels good. That’s just reality. It was unfortunate because it started off the inning with a run when you’re trying to get the leadoff guy out.”

“I’m disappointed in the fact that I couldn’t hold a 6-3 lead,” he said. “That’s the bigger story. We’ve got a game right there in hand to win and I didn’t do a very good job of making pitches in the sixth inning. I’ve got to execute better. The guys go out there and score a bunch of runs off a guy like [CC] Sabathia, you’ve got to go out there and make your pitches and hold your lead and I didn’t do that.”  

The Red Sox lost last night, 9-6 your final. Their once impenetrable 4 game lead on the East has fallen down to just 1 single game. And....in a far more violent situation, Alex Rodriguez was beaned by Ryan Dempster and no matter the effect it had on the game, it happened. 

The Red Sox need to move on and win these next few games in San Francisco.

To see a full video of the incident click here

Also, you may comment below with your thoughts on the A-Rod incident. Is Ryan Dempster a hero for hitting Rodriguez or was he out of line in his actions?

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