Nonetheless, let me try. The bottom of the first got off to a quiet start with a couple of outs, a walk and a single. But then the proverbial wheels came off. Johnny Giavotella – DH’ing fresh off the farm – hit what looked like a routine fly ball to center. But then Marlon Byrd failed to field it cleanly, scoring Butler from second and putting runners at first and third (second base is a corner).
Then Brayan Pena hit a deep fly ball up against the fence in left. From our distant perspective, it looked like Cody Ross made a decent play on it for the third out of the inning. But then third base umpire Chris Guccione (or perhaps it was second base umpire Tim Tschida) signaled “no catch.” Apparently Ross didn’t get it squarely in his glove, and it popped out and hit the wall before he got complete control of it. How an umpire sees something like that I don’t know, but I guess that’s why they get the big money.
So three unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning on two plays that you don’t exactly see everyday.
The Red Sox came back to tie it in the third on much more conventional, station-to-station offense. But the home team regained a one-run lead in the fourth with a pair of doubles. After that things quieted down a bit.
Until the top of the ninth. Iron Man came in to close. Ross led off with a single, and when Darnell McDonald (the Red Sox’s equivalent of our speedy Jarrod Dyson) came in as a pinch runner, the scent of trouble was detectable in the air. Jonathan Broxton walked pinch hitter Nick Punto, and Byrd put down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move McDonald to third.
So when Ryan Sweeney hit a fly to mid-left, our hearts sank. It was going to be a tricky play, and with a speedy runner at third it looked like the game would end up tied. But then Alex Gordon made a diving catch, came up throwing and got the ball in so quickly that McDonald was frozen. Wow. On the next at-bat former Royal Mike Aviles grounded out to short, and that was the game.
Gordon’s amazing catch was the Play of the Game. He also made a couple of other impressive plays – a diving stop in the third robbing Sweeney of extras and a similarly impressive catch on a fly ball by Dustin Pedroia in the fifth – making him Player of the Game.
However, Irving Falu was also worth a mention. This was our first look at this recent call-up, playing third while Mike Moustakis got over some muscle stiffness. He did okay at the plate with a double and a single, though he didn’t make it home in time on a tag-up in the eighth. In the field he made a solid play on a broken-bat grounder, ignoring the splintered wood and fielding the ball cleanly. I’m not sure exactly what role the Royals have in mind for this guy, but he seems to have at least some potential.
The box score: RED SOX (3) AT ROYALS (4) RED SOX AB R H BI ROYALS AB R H BI Mike Aviles 5 0 2 0 Jarrod Dyson 4 0 0 0 Dustin Pedroia 4 1 1 0 Alex Gordon 3 0 1 0 David Ortiz 4 0 0 0 Billy Butler 3 1 1 0 Adrian Gonzalez 4 0 1 3 Jeff Francoeur 4 1 1 0 Will Middlebrooks 4 0 0 0 Johnny Giavotella 4 1 0 1 Cody Ross 4 0 1 0 Brayan Pena 4 0 1 2 J Saltalamacchia 3 0 1 0 Irving Falu 4 1 2 0 Marlon Byrd 2 1 1 0 Chris Getz 3 0 2 0 Ryan Sweeney 4 1 1 0 Alcides Escobar 3 0 1 1 TOTALS 34 3 8 3 TOTALS 32 4 9 4 RED SOX 003 000 000 -- 3 ROYALS 300 100 00x -- 4 LOB--RED SOX 7, ROYALS 7. ERR--Marlon Byrd. 2B--Adrian Gonzalez, J Saltalamacchia, Brayan Pena, Alex Gordon, Alcides Escobar, Irving Falu. HBP--Marlon Byrd, Alex Gordon. SACB--Marlon Byrd, Chris Getz. RED SOX IP H R ER BB SO HR Jon Lester 5 6 4 1 1 3 0 Clayton Mortensen 3 3 0 0 0 1 0 ROYALS Bruce Chen 6 2-3 7 3 3 0 5 0 Aaron Crow 1 1-3 0 0 0 0 1 0 Jonathan Broxton 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 SO--Ryan Sweeney, Adrian Gonzalez, J Saltalamacchia, David Ortiz (2), Will Middlebrooks, Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, Jarrod Dyson, Johnny Giavotella. BB--J Saltalamacchia, Billy Butler. Buck Seat: W- Guard: JROTC (where do these kids get all those ribbons?) Anthem: don’t jazz it up (nice sparkly shirt, though) Umpires: 1 - Welke 2 - Tschida 3 - Guccione H - Nelson
Time: 7:10 Temp: 69
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