Tim Wakefield was pitching for the Sox that night, and after escaping the first inning, he gave up five runs in the second, on three doubles, a walk, a wild pitch, and a homer. In the fourth, the Sox got one run back when Trot Nixon belted a solo homer. That's Trot crossing the plate in the picture below.

Wakefield gave up another run in the bottom of the fourth, to make it 6-1. In the top of the fifth, he came up to bat with two outs and no one on. He had had some good swings in batting practice, even knocking one over the fence, and this time up he hit a single.

In this picture, Wakefield takes a lead off first base after reaching on his hit. The inning was quickly over, though, when Chris Stynes grounded to short. The game began to seem promising again in the sixth, when Scott Hatteberg and Manny Ramirez homered. Then came singles by Brian Daubach, Mike Lansing, and Shea Hillenbrand, and walks to Troy O'Leary and Stynes, and before long the Sox had pulled to within a run, at 6-5.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much time to plan a comeback, since Bryce Florie and Bill Pulsipher combined to allow four runs in the bottom of the inning, and Hipolito Pichardo allowed another in the seventh. It was now 11-5.

The Red Sox did score one run in the eighth, but the inning was marred by a terrible call at first on Stynes' RBI grounder. Jimy Williams was ejected when he came out to argue the call. Sun Kim pitched a scoreless eighth, and the Sox faced Ugueth Urbina in the ninth. They did manage to score one more run, on hits by Bichette, Lansing, and Hillenbrand, but were unable to come all the way back and ended up losing, 11-7. Mike Lansing finished the night with four hits, Trot Nixon and Shea Hillenbrand both had three, and Manny hit his 28th homer of the season on my 28th birthday, but I didn't get the sweep I wanted.

We did have a lot of fun north of the border, and since interleague play is going to shift divisions starting next year, this may have been the only chance I'll get to see the Red Sox play in Montreal. The drive was easy, exchange rate made VIP section seats cost the same as a bleacher ticket at Fenway, and and the Expos may not even exist the next time we play the N.L. East, so I'm glad I made the trip!