Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Schilling, Manny, Papi Dominate Yankees

Curt Schilling pitched eight strong innings for the Red Sox, and Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz continued to terrorize Yankee pitching as the Red Sox rolled on to an easy 9-5 win at Fenway Park last night. The Red Sox have now won the four of the first five meetings with the Yankees in 2006, and have gotten this three-game series off to a good start.

Schilling allowed only one run, struck out six and did not walk a batter in getting his career win number 199. It was first strong outing in nearly one month. He had only one shaky inning, the third, when he gave up an RBI single to Johnny Damon, but struck out Jason Giambi to end it.

Manny hit his career home run number 443, and went 2-for-3 with 3 RBI. he now has an amazing 43 lifetime home runs against the Yankees. Papi went 2-for-4 with three RBI, including a two-run single in the third, ahead of Manny's center field blast.

The Yankees scored four runs in garbage time, the ninth inning when the Sox had an eight-run lead. Mr. Clutch, Alex Rodriguez, padded his stats with a two-run homer off Keith Foulke, who was in to mop up for Schilling. The crowd at Professor Thom's could only give Slappy some derisive cheers as he circled the bases. As the Yankees were scoring these four runs, Ken Singleton said something on YES that absolutely had my head spinning. "The Yankees are sending a message to the Red Sox that they'll be back tomorrow," or some such YES Network nonsense that Red Sox fans have come to know and despise. However, the Yankees have the pleasure of facing Tim Wakefield and his collection of dancing knuckleballs, as opposed to Foulke and his down-the-middle-of-the-plate, let's-get-this-game-over-with meatballs.

Damn those rules that blacks out NESN in favor of the YES network in New York when the Red Sox play the Yankees.

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