On a freezing cold night in Cleveland, the Sox rallied in the ninth and beat the Indians, 6-4.
Julio Lugo (haha, I know!) started the ninth by doubling off Cleveland's joke closer-Joe Borowski. Coco sacrificed him over and then Dustin Pedroia hit a sac. fly to deep left to easily score Lugo to tie it at four.
David Ortiz recorded his second hit of the game, a bloop to left to keep the inning alive. From there, Manny Ramirez unloaded on a Borowski meatball that was right down the pipe.
Jonathan Papelbon struck out two in the bottom of the ninth for his fifth save of the season.
The Sox (8-6) didn't wait long to get things started as Kevin Youkilis (3 hits, 2 RBIs) doubled home Pedroia in the first.
Cleveland (5-8) got two in the fourth and two in the fifth to knock Jon Lester out of the game. Like Dice-K the night before, Lester's bad habits from last season crept up in an early season start. He could only go 4.1 innings, giving up five hits, four runs (all earned), five walks and three strikeouts. In all he threw 97 pitches which won't cut it in that short an outing.
The unsung hero of the game for the Sox was Freddie Kruger, I mean Julian Tavarez, who went 2.2 innings, giving up no runs, two hits and striking out four. Tavarez inherited the bases loaded in the fifth from Lester and amazingly, struck out two Indians to end the inning.
Mike Timlin was credited with the win after he put up a scoreless frame as well. I guess I was a little too early in writing Timlin's obituary.
Boston chipped away with one in the seventh and one in the eighth. Pedroia's infield single scored Lugo and then Youkilis hit his first home run of the season.
This mini-series concludes tonight as Tim Wakefield and Paul Byrd are scheduled to appear.
The Indians announced today that Borowski is on the DL so they'll have to move the bullpen guys around. Shouldn't be a problem though since Borowski is probably the worst closer in baseball. How the guy had 45 saves last year will go down as one of life's great mysteries.
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