It was a fun night at the old ballyard last night.
My daughter Caitlin and I drove up from the Cape and were in our seats for the first pitch. There was no scoring on either side until the bottom of the 8th, when Dustin Pedroia doubled in recent call-up Aaron Bates, who notched his first run in the majors. Click on the picture and you can see the view from Section 29 of the ball coming off of Pedroia’s bat. The game lasted less than 2-1/2 hours, and Tim Wakefield wasn’t pitching. It was John Lester, who no-hit these same Royals in May of last year. This time he threw 8 shutout innings.

Now the correction portion of our program.
When I wrote about the Red Sox blowing a huge lead (10-1) and losing to the Orioles, 11-10 a couple of weeks ago, I said that the last time they had blown a 10-run lead was in 1989 against the Blue Jays. My brother Hugh pointed out that the blown lead against the Orioles was 9 runs, not 10. Point taken. He also noted that he and I watched the Red Sox blow a 10-run lead just last year. That’s true.

It was a hot August night.
The 12th, to be exact. Texas in town. Knuckleballer Charlie Zink was called up from Pawtucket for his 1st major league start. Boston jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the 1st. 5 of the 10 runs came on two Big Papi homers in the same inning. It was 12-2 after four, and looking like both a laugher and a quality start for Zink. It turned out to be neither. In the 5th the Rangers put up an 8 on the left-field scoreboard. Youk hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 5th, but Texas came back with 5 more in the 6th, making it 15-14. The 10-run lead of just 2 innings ago was now history.

Each team added a run in the 7th. Right after “Sweet CarolIne” played the Red Sox scored 4 times…3 coming on Youk’s second homer of the game. Papelbon gave up a run in the 9th, but got the save as Boston won, 19-17.

They won, so it doesn’t count.
I didn’t include this game in the earlier post because they won it. In the 1989 Blue Jays game and 2009 Orioles game they lost. Or maybe I forgot.