Another Long One

Jon Lester pitched another good game; he went 5 innings and gave up only one run. He got into trouble quite a bit, but he always got out of it. That 1 run came off a solo homerun, after Lowell had hit one of his own. Too bad he didn't get the win, he really did pitch well.

This is why I miss NESN and ESPN doesn't work for me: The guy said Manny Delcameron. Remy would never get a name wrong!

Hansen came in to pitch the 6th and it was 1-2-3. However, in the 7th he let 2 men get on before Delcarmen replaced him. Looked like Delcarmen was going to get an easy out, until the ball went right by Loretta and the game was tied. Loretta took his eyes off the ball, and it led to his 4th error of the year. You could tell he was pretty upset with himself, made worse by the fact that Delcarmen finished off the next 2 guys in about 45 seconds. He said this later, "I just flat out missed it. I took my eye off it to see if the runner got a good jump. I was probably trying to do too much there. But it was a severe lapse. That hurt us...I took my eye off it for a second and when I went back to it, it was gone."

Fast forward to the 9th, where we have a 3-3 tie. Willie Harris got picked off. It sucked. He comes in as a pinch-runner and gets picked off. WHATEV. Then Varitek was walked anyway, so it double sucked. Harris had an excuse: "Sometimes you wind up trying too hard. I wasn't leaning at all. I thought [Kiko Calero] balked, personally. Obviously, the umpire didn't think he did. So it was a caught stealing. He did some kind of funky move and it worked out for him."

11th: Tavarez pitched and Oakland took the lead. By 2 runs. Tavarez is either pretty good/okay (like when he pitched 4 scoreless against the White Sox) or bad. And tonight, he was bad. Gabe Kapler put up a fight and got on base in the bottom of the inning, and Varitek singled him home. Then Lowell hit it to the pitcher, and they lost by a run.

That's 2 extra innings games in a row, and 2 losses.