MVN - A Boston Red Sox blog | Analyzing the Olde Towne Team since 2003
Fire Brand of the American League
Moss and Manny deliver
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The stage was set for Daisuke Matsuzaka to have a big showing, but Brandon Moss and Manny Ramirez stole the spotlight.
Down by one in the top of the ninth inning, Moss, who had an RBI single earlier in the ball game, drove a Houston Street low and inside fastball over the right field fence for his first career homerun. Manny Ramirez’s biggest hit of the day (two doubles in five at bats) came in the top of the tenth knocking a two-out double to center field to give the Red Sox the lead for good in the game.
Matsuzaka only lasted 5 innings on two earned runs, five walks and six strikeouts. It is almost understandable that Matsuzaka had a mediocre game pitching in front of his home nation. Credit Javier Lopez, Bryan Corey, Hideki Okajima (W), and Jonathan Papelbon (S) all coming out of the pen to keep the game close for the offense to seal the deal on their end.
Star of the Game: Red Sox Bullpen
A total of 3 2/3 innings of shutout relief by the pen gave the offense a chance to battle back in the game and win it. Without the bullpen holding up their end of the bargain, besides Kyle Snyder who gave up a two run jack after Boston took the lead in the previous inning and the run Papelbon gave up in the bottom tenth, the Red Sox would not be 1-0.
Preview of Next Game: Probables - Jon Lester (Boston) vs. Rich Harden (Oakland). This is Lester’s chance to show all the doubters that he is an established pitcher in Major League Baseball. If Lester can go 5 to 6 innings of work and only give up 0-3 runs the offense should hold up their end of the bargain and propel the Red Sox to a win. The hitters need to make Harden get into high pitch counts and get to the bullpen as fast as they can to have a better chance to win.
Game Highlights:
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Rich Harden, Oakland Athletics, Bryan Corey, Shawn Medeiros, Huston Street, Brandon Moss, Kyle Snyder, Jonathan Papelbon, Hideki Okajima, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Javier Lopez, Manny Ramirez.
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9 Responses to “Moss and Manny deliver”
March 25th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I’m intrigued to see how Harden looks. When he was on he was just about my favorite pitcher to watch.
Not to get carried away but I brought it up before…as much as I expect Drew to bounce back I wonder if Moss could get you .280 20-25 homeruns sooner then later. Not an argument for now… but if someone goes down for an extended time it will be interesting to see what Moss can do. He has always had the build and that doubles power that projected to more home runs down the road, coupled with the ability to draw some walks. Hopefully Drew hits and we manage to get Moss some at bats without him wasting his development on the bench.
March 25th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
“Maybe if I used my American bat that ball maybe would have gone,” he said. “I thought I hit it good. I couldn’t use my bat because it wasn’t legal. Thank God I got some Japanese wood that I could use.”
- Manny’s postgame comments.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Wow, I get the feeling you fell asleep during the game. You could have checked the box score at least.
Manny was not 4 for 5, he was 2 for 5.
Where are you getting 3 2/3 scoreless from the pen? The bullpen gave up 3 ER in 5 inning. Isn’t that a run worse then the “mediocre ” Dice-K did in 5. You should have mentioned how bad Dice looked through 2 innings and how nasty his last 3 were (with 7 in a row retired). And Paps almost blew it. Even he admitted that the Brown base running mistake (not mentioned in your article) was “lucky.”
The bullpen was your star of the game? That’s terrible. At least you got the headline right.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Sorry I guess you are still in the process of fixing your article.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Sorry, I see you are in the process of editing your article. I wish I could edit my previous post.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Anonymous…I was in editing some busted formatting due to the video embed….but did not touch the content.
That said…I agree about the “bullpen” at large. They were given a one run lead with 4 innings to get through. And even though there was a solid stretch in the middle from Lopez, Corey, Okajima….I would say the failure of Snyder to lock down the 6th and Papelbon’s struggles in the 10th make it hard to give the entire bullpen an A+.
I do think Shawn’s thought process was to give credit to the period of time in between Snyder and Papelbon as “unsung heroes”.
For my part, Manny gets the Star of the Game award with Moss a close second and the three mids from the pen in 3rd.
The WPA data at Fan Graphs tends to back me up here: http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?gameid=280325111
FWIW…..
March 25th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
someone fixed manny’s 4 for 5 night to “two doubles in five at bats.”
gotta love the fan graph WPA data. biggest play of the game: Manny’s double in the 10th. worst play of the game: Emil’s base running blunder.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Man, I went all day without hearing anything about the game, watched my recording on DVR and it didn’t record right before the 10th! Glad it turned out well. :)
March 26th, 2008 at 12:26 am
A continuing pattern: Corey “the surgeon”, Oki OK in’08, Lopez still improving, Moss—3HR this month, Ellsbury’s D and a hit, Manny’s back. We’re really still finishing ST, and have the best record in baseball. No problem.
What happened to Paps, Snyder and Street? S.T. Aren’t Embree and Foulke wonders of the age!
In the battle of the newly healed, if Harden is on, Lester will need to be awesome, or Pedroia, Papi, Manny, Lowell, Drew, Youk will need to deliver.
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