Moss and Manny deliver

March 25, 2008 at 1:51 PM

9 Comments

Recommended (0) | Share

The stage was set for Daisuke Matsuzaka to have a big showing, but Brandon Moss and Manny Ramirez stole the spotlight.

Down by one in the top of the ninth inning, Moss, who had an RBI single earlier in the ball game, drove a Houston Street low and inside fastball over the right field fence for his first career homerun. Manny Ramirez��s biggest hit of the day (two doubles in five at bats) came in the top of the tenth knocking a two-out double to center field to give the Red Sox the lead for good in the game.

Matsuzaka only lasted 5 innings on two earned runs, five walks and six strikeouts. It is almost understandable that Matsuzaka had a mediocre game pitching in front of his home nation. Credit Javier Lopez, Bryan Corey, Hideki Okajima (W), and Jonathan Papelbon (S) all coming out of the pen to keep the game close for the offense to seal the deal on their end.

Star of the Game: Red Sox Bullpen

A total of 3 2/3 innings of shutout relief by the pen gave the offense a chance to battle back in the game and win it. Without the bullpen holding up their end of the bargain, besides Kyle Snyder who gave up a two run jack after Boston took the lead in the previous inning and the run Papelbon gave up in the bottom tenth, the Red Sox would not be 1-0.

Preview of Next Game: Probables - Jon Lester (Boston) vs. Rich Harden (Oakland). This is Lester's chance to show all the doubters that he is an established pitcher in Major League Baseball. If Lester can go 5 to 6 innings of work and only give up 0-3 runs the offense should hold up their end of the bargain and propel the Red Sox to a win. The hitters need to make Harden get into high pitch counts and get to the bullpen as fast as they can to have a better chance to win.

Game Highlights:

Categories: Brandon Moss, Bryan Corey, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima, Huston Street, Javier Lopez, Jonathan Papelbon, Kyle Snyder, Manny Ramirez, Oakland Athletics, Rich Harden, Shawn Medeiros

PREVIOUS: The Wisdom of Crowds: 2008 Red Sox Predictions

NEXT: DirecTV Outage Costs Many Fans Opening Day

Discussion

9 Comments on "Moss and Manny deliver"

Posted by Jaredk, March 25, 2008 2:05 PM

I'm intrigued to see how Harden looks. When he was on he was just about my favorite pitcher to watch.

Not to get carried away but I brought it up before...as much as I expect Drew to bounce back I wonder if Moss could get you .280 20-25 homeruns sooner then later. Not an argument for now... but if someone goes down for an extended time it will be interesting to see what Moss can do. He has always had the build and that doubles power that projected to more home runs down the road, coupled with the ability to draw some walks. Hopefully Drew hits and we manage to get Moss some at bats without him wasting his development on the bench.

Posted by Steven Roth, March 25, 2008 5:57 PM

"Maybe if I used my American bat that ball maybe would have gone," he said. "I thought I hit it good. I couldn't use my bat because it wasn't legal. Thank God I got some Japanese wood that I could use."

- Manny's postgame comments.

Posted by Anonymous, March 25, 2008 6:46 PM

Wow, I get the feeling you fell asleep during the game. You could have checked the box score at least.

Manny was not 4 for 5, he was 2 for 5.

Where are you getting 3 2/3 scoreless from the pen? The bullpen gave up 3 ER in 5 inning. Isn't that a run worse then the "mediocre " Dice-K did in 5. You should have mentioned how bad Dice looked through 2 innings and how nasty his last 3 were (with 7 in a row retired). And Paps almost blew it. Even he admitted that the Brown base running mistake (not mentioned in your article) was "lucky."

The bullpen was your star of the game? That's terrible. At least you got the headline right.

Posted by Anonymous, March 25, 2008 6:48 PM

Sorry I guess you are still in the process of fixing your article.

Posted by Anonymous, March 25, 2008 6:55 PM

Sorry, I see you are in the process of editing your article. I wish I could edit my previous post.

Posted by Tim Daloisio, March 25, 2008 7:11 PM

Anonymous...I was in editing some busted formatting due to the video embed....but did not touch the content.

That said...I agree about the "bullpen" at large. They were given a one run lead with 4 innings to get through. And even though there was a solid stretch in the middle from Lopez, Corey, Okajima....I would say the failure of Snyder to lock down the 6th and Papelbon's struggles in the 10th make it hard to give the entire bullpen an A+.

I do think Shawn's thought process was to give credit to the period of time in between Snyder and Papelbon as "unsung heroes".

For my part, Manny gets the Star of the Game award with Moss a close second and the three mids from the pen in 3rd.

The WPA data at Fan Graphs tends to back me up here: http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?gameid=280325111

FWIW.....

Posted by TALL THRILL, March 25, 2008 8:03 PM

someone fixed manny's 4 for 5 night to "two doubles in five at bats."

gotta love the fan graph WPA data. biggest play of the game: Manny's double in the 10th. worst play of the game: Emil's base running blunder.

Posted by Shane, March 25, 2008 11:41 PM

Man, I went all day without hearing anything about the game, watched my recording on DVR and it didn't record right before the 10th! Glad it turned out well. :)

Posted by Anonymous, March 26, 2008 12:26 AM

A continuing pattern: Corey "the surgeon", Oki OK in'08, Lopez still improving, Moss---3HR this month, Ellsbury's D and a hit, Manny's back. We're really still finishing ST, and have the best record in baseball. No problem.

What happened to Paps, Snyder and Street? S.T. Aren't Embree and Foulke wonders of the age!

In the battle of the newly healed, if Harden is on, Lester will need to be awesome, or Pedroia, Papi, Manny, Lowell, Drew, Youk will need to deliver.

via RSS

Poll

Who is more important for the Red Sox to extend past their current contracts?(survey)

MVN: Most Valuable Network