AS MUCH HARD LUCK AS THE RED SOX recently had with great pitching but tough losses, Roy Halladay had worse:
But then again, Pedroia was there to make sure everyone knew the Sox earned the win:It was Halladay's fourth straight complete game. He's lost the last three.
Lester allowed just one hit in eight innings, a clean single on Lyle Overbay's liner in the fifth over second baseman Pedroia's head. But Pedroia kept the game scoreless in the ninth when he dove to his right and nabbed Wells' grounder after Scott Rolen had doubled off Jonathan Papelbon (1-0) with two outs.Pedroia gloved the ball and threw out Wells.
"Anybody's diving for any balls in that situation," Pedroia said. "It definitely got the crowd involved. It's a little bit of momentum. They could have had a run and it gets taken away."
Wells wanted to hit the ball up the middle.
"I saw it get by the mound," he said, "and I saw Superman at second base."
That play also earned Pedroia Baseball Tonight's number one Web Gem, by the way.
THE SCIENCE OF BASEBALL sometimes includes mad scientists. Sure, there's the famous shift – often employed against Big Papi – where the field is stacked on the right, leaving the entire third base side wide open. But then there's craziness like this:
Braves manager Bobby Cox was desperate, and he was plotting an ingenious plan. He was nearly out of right-handed pitchers, and players can't re-enter a game after they've been removed. If Mr. Resop, a righty, could play the outfield, that would allow Mr. Cox to replace him on the mound temporarily — and use a lefty specialist to pitch to Adam LaRoche — without losing him entirely. So after Mr. Resop pitched to three batters in the top of the 10th inning, Mr. Cox had him go to left field. When Mr. Resop returned to the pitcher's mound one batter later, it marked the first time a pitcher had pitched, played the field and pitched again in the same game since Jeff Nelson of the Seattle Mariners in 1993, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
But if Mr. Melvin had his way, the Brewers organization might be even more progressive. He has another counterintuitive idea: using relievers to start the game, and delaying the "starting" pitcher's entrance until the third inning or so. The thinking is that starters are typically among a team's best pitchers, yet nowadays they often pitch only through the fifth or sixth inning, well before many games are decided. By having them pitch later, they'd be around for the higher-leverage innings.
The idea would need to be tested first in the minor leagues, Mr. Melvin says. The only problem, it appears, is that it's too unconventional. "I can't get anybody to do it," he says.
THERE SEEMS TO BE A THEME DEVELOPING on ESPN.com's baseball widget. Today's headline: "Gagne blows save, but Kapler lifts Brewers in 12th." Good news for Gabe, at least.
ON A NIGHT WHEN BECKETT, VARITEK, LOWELL, CORA AND CRISP are all unavailable, this is a pretty great sentence to be able to read:
Jacoby Ellsbury hit two solo homers and Kevin Youkilis added a two-run shot for Boston, while Pedroia went 4-for-5 with three doubles and a single.
It's their sixth straight win and third late-inning comeback.
ESPN.COM WIDGET HEADLINE: "Reds rally off closer Gagne in 10th, stun Brewers." Isn't it more shocking that the Brewers were stunned?
TURNS OUT THE HEX WASN'T A HOAX, but did it actually become a pox on the Sox, and not a prank on the Yanks? It may have seemed like a great idea to bury a Red Sox jersey underneath the new Yankee Stadium as a curse on the Yankees, but the symbolism never really made sense to me. Turns out the jersey buried in concrete bore the name of one Mr. David Ortiz, whose .070 average and 3 for 43 slump definitely borders on the supernatural, but in a bad way. Looks like the construction worker's well-meaning curse may have backfired. Oops. Now that the Yanks have excavated the jersey, let's see if Papi gets his mojo back.
