After suffering its most devastating loss of the early season (10-9 on Wednesday), the Red Sox exhibited the sign of a solid team as they bounced back with a 5-1 win last night in Detroit.
The win allowed them to take three out of four from the rudderless Tigers, the first stop on a three city trip for Boston (23-14).
What made Wednesday so disappointing was the fact that the Red Sox twice battled back from four-run deficits, only to have bums like Julian Tavarez and Julio Lugo hand it over to Detroit (15-21).
Wednesday's starter Clay Buchholz was hit hard, to the tune of ten hits in four innings. He allowed five runs (all earned), one walk and six strikeouts.
After cutting a 4-0 Tigers lead to 5-4, Tavarez gave up three runs in one inning of work. From there, Boston answered with five runs to take a 9-8 lead into the ninth.
Mike Lowell (3 hits, 3 RBIs, 2 runs) and Kevin Youkilis (2 runs, 2 hits, 3 RBIs) provided the heavy lumber as Youk homered twice (Comerica Park is the only place he's done that, now twice) and Lowell had a three-run shot. David Ortiz continued to swing the bat well as he collected two hits.
Placido Polanco was an on-base machine on Wednesday as he had five hits, three RBIs and two runs. Fittingly, after a Lugo error allowed a runner to reach in the ninth, Polanco had a broken-bat bloop that dropped right behind Lugo. It was that type of night for nobody's favorite shortstop.
Jonathan Papelbon (2-1) gave up two hits and two runs (neither earned) to pick up his first blown save and loss of the year.
In the dugout afterwards, Paps took out his anger on an unfortunate Gatorade cooler but most fans probably wish he just beat the hell out of Lugo. Did I mention Julio is useless?
On a brighter note, Josh Beckett (4-2) looked good last night. He went seven innings, allowing six hits, one run with eight strikeouts.
Boston got to supposed Tigers ace Justin Verlander early, scoring three in the third and two in the fifth.
Verlander fell to 1-6 on the year with a disgusting 6.43 ERA, making me glad I didn't have him on any of my fantasy teams. He's lost velocity from his dominant rookie season two years ago and like all Tigers pitchers right now, he's searching for answers.
Youk had a two-run shot off of Verlander while Coco Crisp (3 hits), Jacboy Ellsbury (2 hits), Lowell (2 hits) and Ortiz (2 hits) each had multiple hits.
Craig Hansen and Manny Delcarmen both pitched scoreless innings which is not something you see everyday.
The Sox travel to Minnesota for a four-game set in the beautiful Metrodome.
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