Another day, another crappy performance by the Sox.
This one felt over as soon as it began, when Jose Contreras gave up two runs in the first. As it turned out, the Sox required the Orioles to score more than three runs to win (they did), but Jose Contreras never established himself during this game.
Contreras was hit hard, and it didn’t matter whether he was ahead in the count or behind. He followed in the footsteps of Jon Garland, Dewon Day and Mark Buehrle of not being able to retire Corey Patterson after getting ahead 0-2, and ended up giving up a solo shot off the right-field foul pole.
Brian Roberts went deep as well, Nick Markakis hit an RBI double that nearly made it out, and other Orioles gave Sox pitchers some scares with deep fly balls aided by a stiff wind blowing straight out.
Aside from Jermaine Dye, who launched two solo homers, Sox hitters couldn’t take advantage of the breeze off Garret Olson. Tadahito Iguchi’s seventh-inning double was the only other time a Sox hitter made an Orioles outfielder turn his back to home plate. Otherwise, it was a string of ground balls and weak pop-ups.
Toby Hall failed to drive in a runner on third with less than two outs in the fourth, which was unfortunate since today was his best game in a Sox uniform. He hit two singles, but more importantly, threw out two out of three potential basestealers. Patterson was the only successful one, and Hall nearly gunned him down, too.
Still, I was hoping A.J. Pierzynski would hit for Hall when he came up with no outs in the ninth inning after Cintron led off with a single. Hall would strike out looking, Jerry Owens did the same (where was Rob Mackowiak?) and Iguchi grounded out harmlessly to end the game.
It gave Olson his first victory, although I would hesitate to call it a "major-league" victory since he wasn't facing a major-league team.
Record: 40-50 |
Box score |
Play-by-play