Boston (48-45, 25-25 home) is finally trending upwards as they took three out of four against the AL Central leaders from Chicago (50-42, 26-20 away).
Kevin Youkilis was a healthy scratch tonight and the White Sox certainly missed his potent bat in their otherwise weak lineup. Still, things looked good for them as they led 1-0 headed into the bottom of the ninth.
Carl Crawford singled against Matt Thornton (2-6) before Dustin Pedroia grounded into a fielder's choice. Adrian Gonzalez (2 hits) singled against Thornton which prompted Chicago rookie manager Robin Ventura to turn it over to his closer Addison Reed. Three pitches later Ross ended it with a shot down the left field line and over the Monster (his 16th of the season). It was the fifth walkoff hit of his career and third homer in that instance.
The Red Sox' celebration was pretty great too as Nick Punto ripped off Ross's jersey (apparently that's why he's nicknamed Shredder) and Alfredo Aceves (1-6) dumped an entire jug of blue Gatorade that sprayed all of his teammates. More of that please.
Chicago rookie lefty Jose Quintana was lights out as he pitched eight scoreless innings. Boston could only get five hits against him but he struck out two and didn't walk anybody.
Clay Buchholz was almost as excellent. In eight innings, he allowed one earned run on six hits with six strikeouts and one walk. If he wants to be the ace that the Red Sox currently lack, that would be fantastic. Normally, he has the second-best run support in MLB (ironically behind teammate Felix Doubront) but that was nowhere to be seen tonight.
The White Sox pushed across their lone run in the fourth on Alex Rios's sacrifice fly which scored Adam Dunn.
Boston actually had two nice chances to score: Pedro Ciriaco tripled with two outs in the third but Jacoby Ellsbury struck out. Then Will Middlebrooks had a quality at bat but grounded into a double play with the bases loaded to end the seventh.
Normally (or at least earlier this season), this was a prototypical game that the Red Sox most definitely do not win. It is a proven fact that they have really struggled in low-scoring close games the last few years. So if they go anywhere in 2012, you can bet this result will be one that every writer, player and fan points to. Not Bobby V though, he always has to be a contrarian no matter what the question.
The nose-diving Blue Jays (45-47, 5th in AL East) arrive in Fenway tomorrow night (7:10 p.m., NESN) for three games. Josh Beckett (5-7) faces Aaron Laffey (1-1) then it's Aaron Cook (2-2) vs. Carlos Villanueva (4-0) on Saturday night (7:10 p.m., NESN) and Jon Lester (5-7) against Henderson Alvarez (5-7) on Sunday afternoon (1:35 p.m., NESN).
With no Jose Bautista (on the DL) and possibly no Brett Lawrie, Toronto looks ripe to be swept as the Red Sox go for their third straight series win after the All-Star break. After that, Boston goes to Texas (three games) and New York (three games) in what can only be described as the road trip from hell, at least in terms of difficulty to say nothing about those miserable places.
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