Sox Win! Yankees Lose!

We went to our first (and probably only) Red Sox game of the season last night, and we picked a good one. The Sox have been in a bit of a slide recently, while the Yankees have been pretty much unstoppable. There has been much concern in Red Sox Nation, and after a great performance by Tim Wakefield the night before, we needed another from Jon Lester. It was going to be a feel-good experience regardless, since it was Lester’s first Fenway appearance since being diagnosed with cancer last August. Still, he’s been having trouble with his pitch counts, and Tampa Bay was countering with Scott Kazmir, whose personal mission seems to be to beat the Sox whenever he gets the chance. Things did not look good, especially when Lester walked the first batter.

Then he settled down, and left after seven innings having given up two hits, just the one walk, and one run (on a sacrifice fly). Only problem was, the Sox couldn’t get anything off of Kazmir, and it was looking like a 1-0 loss, or worse. Then Timlin got us out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth, and Gagne came in to pitch the ninth. Naturally, he was booed, but he struck out the side (giving up a harmless double), the boos turned to cheers, and we were at the bottom of the ninth.

Late-inning heroics have been the hallmark of this team for the last few years, but they’ve been few and far between this year. The only time the Sox have won when losing after eight innings (in 41 chances) was back on Mother’s Day. Still, we believed, or at least hoped. Things looked bleak when Manny struck out, but then Lowell came in and hit one over the Green Monster and the game was tied. One out later, Varitek hit a ground rule double, Coco Crisp got to 3-2, hit a ball into right field and drove home Varitek for the winning run. Cue the high fives, the cheers, and the kind of joy that has been conspicuously absent on a team with the best winning percentage in baseball.

And, of course, throughout the game we got to watch the scoreboard as the numbers kept rising for the Orioles and staying at 0 for the Yankees. Final score there was 12-0. Nice.