Manny's 2000th Came on a 3-R HR

Looks like I might be having a very random posting schedule this week. Yesterday, the drive from VA to RI took 14 hours (it was supposed to take ten!) so I completely missed the game. I did learn that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz both hit 2 homeruns each! One of Manny's homeruns was also his 2,000th career hit. Of course this is the kind of game I miss. Typical. However, the errorless games streak came to an end at 17 due to 2 errors (the Gonz and Varitek). At least they made it to 17, which is the new MLB record.

Right now, I am watching the game on NESN (I am so so so happy to get NESN!) and 3 solo HRs (Youkilis, Ortiz, and Varitek) put the Sox up 3-1. Jon Lester loaded the bases in the 2nd with no outs, then got 3 in a row. Good to see he can handle the pressure situations. In the 5th, another Marlin run scored to make it a one run game. Then Manny got caught stealing, and what? Manny doesn't steal bases.

Julian Tavarez replaced Lester in the 6th and pitched quite well. But in the 7th, he gave up a solo HR to make it 3-3; he's pretty good at letting the other team get runs. Timlin came in to fix the mess, but he got in Youkilis' way as Youk went to get the ball and Youk got an error. All those errorless games, and now 4 errors in 2 games. Timlin walked a batter to load the bases with one out. He needed to pull a Lester and get out of the inning unscathed, and he did. The 3rd out came on an infield pop-up and Ortiz was basically NOOOed by Timlin, who had to make up for that thing with Youkilis.

Cora reached in the 8th, as the 2nd baseman didn't get a good handle on the ball. Kapler followed that up with a single that sent Cora to 3rd, then Youk hit one to the 3rd baseman and Cora smartly went back to the bag and avoided an out. Loretta hit a sac fly to score Cora and put the Sox back on top, 4-3.

Delcarmen got 2 outs in the 8th, then Papelbon came in to get the next 4 outs. Boston didn't get any runs in the 9th, so it was up to Papelbon to keep it a 4-3 game and hope NY would lose tonight to go up 5 games (by the way, we were struck in traffic for over 2 hours just getting to the George Washington Bridge in NYC. 26 miles = 2 hours. I was really wishing my Red Sox hat wasn't in the trunk, because there was way too much Yankee love going on. Yeah, yeah, NYC, I know..). And he did, so we're up 4.5, soon to be 5!