Thursday, June 05, 2008

Back to the Head of the Class

The Red Sox won their second straight game over Tampa Bay, 5-1 on Wednesday night, as Josh Beckett won his sixth straight game, and the Red Sox took over first from their new archrivals.

J.D. Drew continued his hot hitting and clutch fielding in the absence of David Ortiz, as he drove in another big run and made another fine running catch in the first, as he did on Tuesday night.

The bullpen did another fine job over the final three innings, as Manny Delcarmen, Hideki Okajima and Craig Hansen pitched scoreless ball to get Beckett the win. It was especially important that Okajima have a good outing, as his last one was one of his worst ever in a Red Sox uniform. He allowed a hit to the first batter, then retired the side after that. And Hansen continued his fine pitching as well, and it allowed Terry Francona to avoid using Jonathan Papelbon.

There was a bit of fireworks in the eighth inning, as Coco Crisp was thrown out stealing, and minutes later during a pitching change, he got into a shouting match with Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon. The Rays felt that Coco had gone too hard into Akinori Iwamura, and it erupted into some serious unmistakable colorful language between the two of them, and it was not hard to figure out they weren't changing pleasantries. Coco explained after the game that he was miffed over the fact that Jason Bartlett had put his knee down in the sixth inning when he was trying to steal then, and felt he could have been injured. Crisp also said he was "sending a message."

The Red Sox go for the sweep on Thursday night at a 6 PM start time, and it will be interesting to see if anything happens between Coco, the Red Sox and the Rays then.

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