Red Sox break the Seattle jinx
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by Dicekmania
After suffering defeat after defeat at Safeco Field in Seattle, the Boston Red Sox came away victorious last night with a nail biting 4-3 victory, behind 7 strong innings from Daisuke Matsuzaka. Going into the night's action, the Sox had been on the wrong end of 9 straight games against the Mariners at Safeco.Dice-K allowed two runs, both on solo homeruns and had a dominant fastball working all night long, as he struck out 10 Mariners to match his season high in K's (done on two previous occasions this season). The bullpen was a bit shaky for the Sox as the newly acquired Eric Gagne pitched the 8th inning and allowed a run (He has allowed 1 run in each of his first two games pitched with the Red Sox).
Not the type of performance the Sox were expecting when getting him at the deadline. Papelbon came on in the 9th to record his 25th save of the season, but not before allowing tying run to 2nd and the winning run at 1st. It looked like the Mariner magic was going to continue but Paps got Adrian Beltre to swing at the first pitch and pop it up to Varitek. This was a big win for the Red Sox, who remain 7 games in front of the red hot New York Yankees, who scored 16 more runs today against the Royals, don't look now, but the Yankees are just 1 game out of the wild card lead. Their offense is carrying them, 188 runs scored since the all-star break, it doesn't matter how bad the pitching is when you can put up runs like their offense can.
Jason Varitek provided the offense spark in the 4th with his two out double to left, which plated Ortiz and the hustling Manny Ramirez, who scored all the way from first. In the 6th the Sox scored two more times. Youkilis led off with a double, he scored on a Ortiz single to center, Manny followed with what would prove to be the game winning RBI, as he doubled Ortiz home. The Sox once again got 10 hits on the night, every one with the exception of Dustin Pedroia and Coco Crisp had hits. Julio Lugo, Youkilis and Ortiz each had two hits. Boston has a chance to claim the series in the rubber match, they have 13 game winner Josh Beckett on the hill, he will be opposed by Miguel Batista. With the win tonight, Daisuke became the third 13 game winner on the Red Sox, joining Tim Wakefield (13-9) and Beckett (13-5) as the others, they are the only team in MLB with three 13 games winners.
