The Triumphant Red Sox Blog

Updated 05/20/2008 at 13:23 EDT

24-year-old Jon Lester faced the Kansas City Royals tonight to open the four-game series, and all he did was throw a no-hitter. It was the 18th no-hitter in team history (no American League team has more), the first by a Red Sox left-hander since Mel Parnell did it to the White Sox on July 14, 1956, and the first at Fenway Park since way back on September 1, 2007 when Clay Buchholz no-hit the Orioles.

The cherry on the sundae is that it was the fourth no-hitter caught by Jason Varitek, and that's a major league record. (Update: See today's Boston Globe for details on this record.) He was behind the plate for Hideo Nomo's second career no-hitter, also against Baltimore, on April 4, 2001; for Derek Lowe's no-hitter on April 27, 2002, versus Tampa Bay; and for last year's Buchholz gem.

Did I mention that my friend Lloyd was at this game? He has 20-game-pack tickets up in the new left field Pavilion, so he had a good view as the evening played out. Can't wait to have lunch with him tomorrow so he can tell me all about it.

(Note: When I eventually get onto Retrosheet.org, whose servers are probably being swamped by stats geeks like me, I'll post links to the box scores of the above games.) Links to the no-hitters mentioned have been added. Thanks to Retrosheet.org.

Labels: accomplishments, catchers, pitchers

Well that sucked. Let's get the bats going for the series against mighty Tampa Bay, shall we?

And speaking of The Team Formerly Known as the Devil Rays, we are now out of April and the Rays are in first place. It's as if we're living in a parallel universe where Tampa Bay doesn't suck.

Labels: MLB

The Sox now move to the bottom of the ninth with the intention of scoring at least three runs. If they pull it off, I hope they just keep going and score four. I'm beat tonight and not looking forward to extra innings.

Labels: in-game musings

Granted, the last two games were phenomenally exciting, edge-of-your-seat contests that the Sox won with walk-off hits. It is nice to know these guys don't stop playing until the game is over.

The problem is that they can't pull off late-game heroics every time. Given that reality, it might be a good idea for the Sox to try to, you know, score before the ninth inning.

Take tonight's game, which the Blue Jays currently lead 3-0 in the top of the ninth inning. I know that Red Sox fans the world over realize a win is still possible, though not probable. On NESN, Don Orsillo is just pointing out that the Sox have had eight walk-off wins and 10 come-from-behind wins this season (I think I got that right). But come on, guys, give us a break here. And give a break to the poor guys who have to hit in the bottom of the ninth.

Wait, Terry Francona is making a pitching change—to Mike Timlin. I love Mike, really I do. But I'm afraid a come-from-behind win just got less probable, as I have no confidence that the score will still be 3-0 when he's done.

Labels: in-game musings

Some people, usually casual fans, find baseball boring. Not enough action, they protest, or the games take so long. Ask them what would make the sports more exciting and they're more likely than not to say they want more hitting. There is action in offense and grandeur in towering home runs. The irony is that high scoring games are also very long, but if your understanding of baseball is limited to hits and runs, it would be hard to sit through a game that lacked those elements.

For me, the most exciting games are the low scoring affairs where the pitchers and fielders have no room for mistakes. There is nothing better—or, increasingly, rarer—than a pitchers' duel. So I was as happy as a clam watching last night's contest between the Sox and the Blue Jays. It lasted only 2 hours 18 minutes, according to the official box score, and involved only three pitchers, one run, and an average of only 12 1/2 pitches thrown per half inning.

Compare that with the other 14 games around the major leagues last night that averaged 3 hours long and more than 8 pitchers used. But enough of the raw numbers.

What was most enjoyable about last night's battle is that both starting pitchers were about as close to perfect as most pitchers ever get. Toronto's Roy Halladay is known as an efficient and fast worker, the antithesis of what Boston's Jon Lester has been so far in his short major league career. Yet Lester was also quick and efficient, perhaps following Halladay's lead, or maybe because manager Terry Francona reportedly suggested to him after Justin Masterson's debut appearance that Lester might take a page from Masterson's book and move things along a bit more than he is used to. It was great to see Lester pitching the way we have long heard he can.

Meanwhile, there were defensive plays aplenty to back up the pitchers, the most memorable being a diving stop by second baseman Dustin Pedroia that saved a run. It was reminiscent of the spectacular play he made late in Clay Buchholz' no-hitter last year, and a sign that the terrific defense we saw from Pedroia last year wasn't a fluke. He epitomizes the term "scrappy," which MLB.com's Ian Browne uses in his game recap and many a Sox fan would agree with.

Of course, I wouldn't be waxing poetic about the game if we had been on the losing end of the 1-0 score. It's more fun to watch your team win a close one than to be left agonizing about why they couldn't do just a little more. That frustration was saved for Jays fans, not to mention Halladay, who was none too happy when center fielder Vernon Wells bobbled Kevin Youkilis' hit that ended up scoring David Ortiz in the bottom of the ninth. (Incidentally, I wasn't there to see exactly Ortiz was on the basepath when Wells fumbled, but I was somewhat surprised the official scorer didn't score an error on the play. It seemed to me an argument could be made for marking Ortiz to third on Youk's hit and to home on an E-8.)

In any event, it was a great win, and as I sit here and write about it, the same teams are in the midst of another tight one, a 1-1 game with pitching not quite as good as lawst night's but still better than you'd expect from Daisuke Matsuzaka and Dustin McGowan, the latter of whom, by the way, is on my fantasy team and did well for me tonight and has now given way to relief that I hope will give it up. I realize how lucky I am to love this game and be able to appreciate it in its many forms, including the lost art of outstanding pitching. So, with the Red Sox threatening with runners on first ande second with one out, I leave you to reflect on your own appreciation of what we have seen these last two games. And if you don't appreciate it, well, all I can say is you don't know what you're missing.

Labels: pitching

OK, so that didn't go exactly as planned. Clay Buchholz was very good, but unfortunately Chien-Ming Wang was better. Each allowed just one run, but Wang was more efficient with his pitches and turned in a complete game. Buchholz gave way to a string of relievers who, well, didn't do as good a job as he did (see: Timlin, Mike). Hideki Okajima did an admirable job trying to get the Sox out of the situation Timlin had placed them in, but he did allow one inherited runner to score on a sacrifice fly. Beazer and I scratched our heads over why Okie didn't come out for the eighth inning. Javier Lopez acquitted himself well before David Aardsma gave up the game's final run in the ninth inning.

The hitting was anemic, to say the least. Big Papi not only continues to hit below the Mendoza line, he's hitting below Mendoza's knees — .077 after going 0-for-3 last night. The offensive bright spot continues to be J.D. Drew, who had the only Sox run with his third home run of the season. His average stands at .429 with eight RBI. Of course he got off to a good start last year, but not that good: .342 with one homer and seven RBI after the same number of games.

It rained for more than half the game, but we were under cover (grandstand section 26) so we didn't mind. Today's game looks like it won't be a wash-out after all, with relatively warm temps and only about a 40% chance of showers. So I guess I'll go. Look for me on TV. I'll be the one cheering with a bunch or people around me.

Labels: game recaps, good vs. evil

The wild card factor here is the weather. I just got tickets for tonight's Red Sox vs. Yankees game from a co-worker with seasons tickets who is sick and can't go. My good friend and sistah Beazer has tickets for tomorrow afternoon's and Sunday night's games.

If the rain that is being forecasted (70-80% chance of precipitation through the evening) holds off long enough, Beazer and I will see tonight's game. Tomorrow afternoon's forecast looks even worse, and frankly neither of us wants to hang around for what almost certainly will be a rain-out. So we're both going to stay home and hope for a postponement to Sunday afternoon, at which time we'll see a day-night doubleheader.

That's my plan. Now it's up to Mother Nature not to screw it up.

Labels: Red Sox friends, weather