Tigers 1
As if anything more could go wrong for Julio Lugo right now... He was the only Red Sox player not to get a hit in last night's 5-1 win. Ellsbury, Ortiz and Mike Lowell each had two and Coco Crisp had three, starting in center with Ellsbury replacing Manny in left.
The Sox got 4 straight hits from Lowell, Drew, Varitek and Crisp to start the 2nd, and Ellsbury finally gave Verlander an out with a sac fly to center. When the smoke cleared Verlander had given up 3 runs on four hits, hit Julio Lugo, and threw a wild pitch.
The only other offense the Red Sox would get was another home run from Kevin Youkilis. He now has 5 in his last 5 games.While the Tigers "ace" continued to struggle, Josh Beckett mowed down the Tigers, fanning 8 (Granderson 4 times) and allowing just 1 run over 7 innings - just what the Red Sox needed from their ace.
A good sign - Craig Hansen and Manny Delcarmen each worked an inning and didn't implode. Hansen retired the heart of the Tigers order, getting Polanco and Gullien to ground out and Ordonez to pop out to second. And MDC closed out the win by retiring the first three batters he faced and fanning Cabrera.
Bottom Line: The Red Sox are done with the Tigers and took the season series 5 games to 2. It's hard to guess what will happen with the Tigers going forward, but I expected the Red Sox to split these game at best, so Red Sox Nation should be very pleased.
BL Hero: Josh Beckett probably deserves the Award for shutting down the Tigers the night after they appeared to wake up... but this was a team effort - so I'm going to give the whole team the BL Hero award today...
Even Lugo 'cause he got hit by a pitch.
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