{"id":2593,"date":"2012-05-27T23:16:59","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T03:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/?p=2593"},"modified":"2012-06-23T20:48:50","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T00:48:50","slug":"going-going-gonzo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/27\/going-going-gonzo\/","title":{"rendered":"Going, Going, Gonzo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, May 27, 2012 – Fenway Park, Section 32<\/h3>\n

Rays 4, Red Sox 3<\/h4>\n

In the past few weeks, the Red Sox had begun to climb out of their early season hole.\u00a0 A decent road trip saw them split in Tampa, win two of three in Philadelphia, and take another two of three in Baltimore.\u00a0 After splitting the first two of this series with the Rays, they came into Sunday’s game with a 23-23 record, the fifth time in the season that they had reached the .500 mark, although they had yet to cross above it.\u00a0 As usual, I drove in early, found a spot at a meter a block down the street from Kenmore Square, and went in when the gates opened.\u00a0 Neither team was taking batting practice, but the pitchers were long-tossing in right field.\u00a0 Big Papi was strolling out to the outfield with a bucket of baseballs, followed by Felix Doubront and their sons, 7-year-old D’Angelo Ortiz and 5-year-old Noah Doubront.<\/p>\n

\"Big

Big Papi with his son D'Angelo and Felix Doubront's son Noah.<\/p><\/div>\n

As the pitchers wrapped up and went in (Daniel Bard stopped to sign autographs on the way by), Papi and friends set up in centerfield.\u00a0 The kids took turns batting, with switch-hitter D’Angelo swatting a few up over the centerfield wall to the fans in Section 35.\u00a0 Noah’s bat seemed a little too heavy for him, but he hit some line drives and enjoyed running around and chasing down all the balls.<\/p>\n

With Cody Ross out after breaking a bone in his foot and Ryan Sweeney on the 7-day concussion D.L., this was my first chance to see the new fielding configuration that allowed the Sox to keep their best hitters in the lineup every night.\u00a0 Will Middlebrooks, the promising young third baseman who debuted when Kevin Youkilis was injured, didn’t have to go back to the minors when Youk returned.\u00a0 Youk slid over to play first base, the position he held from 2006-10, and Adrian Gonzalez, himself a gold glove winner at first, played right field.\u00a0 It was one thing when Gonzo played in right in interleague road games, but Fenway’s spacious, sunny right field is another story, so it was admirable that Adrian was a team player who didn’t mind going out of his comfort zone for as long as was needed.\u00a0 He was tested right away, and made a running catch of a shallow fly to end the first inning.<\/p>\n

\"Adrian

Adrian Gonzalez makes the play on a ball down the right field line.<\/p><\/div>\n

Adrian got another chance in the fourth, when Matt Joyce hit one down the right field line that hugged the wall and rolled toward the deep part of right.\u00a0 Gonzo got to it quickly and fielded it without letting it get by him.\u00a0 That’s a play that a lot of fielders have trouble with at Fenway, and we were relieved he had fielded it capably… until his throw sailed over the cutoff man and the runner wound up at third.\u00a0 The next batter grounded out, but it drove Joyce home, and the Rays led 1-0.<\/p>\n

(Scoring rant:\u00a0 A double plus an error followed by a 3-1 groundout which drives in the runner from third means the run is unearned, right?\u00a0 Not so fast – when the next batter singled, the run which had already scored became earned because he “would have scored” even if the error hadn’t given him an extra base.\u00a0 This rule bothers me.\u00a0 Sure, he probably<\/em> would have moved to third on the groundout to first and scored on the single, or even if he had held at second for the groundout he could have<\/em> scored from there on the single – but if everything that could happen in baseball did, we wouldn’t have to play the games!\u00a0 Not to mention that if the runner was still at third after the groundout, they may have pitched differently than they did with the bases empty, and the next batter may not have even gotten a hit.\u00a0 It’s even weirder because the batter who hits the groundout gets credit for the RBI either way, not the one whose single might have knocked in a run.)<\/p>\n

\"Clay

Clay Buchholz had a really good outing, even if he didn't have anything to show for it.<\/p><\/div>\n

Clay Buchholz had really struggled to start the year, coming into the game with an ERA over 7.\u00a0 But today he had a strong outing. \u00a0The only blip in the first six innings was the cheap run that followed Gonzo’s error, and he allowed a second run on a couple of hits as he started to tire in the seventh. \u00a0Unfortunately Clay had nothing to show for it. \u00a0Despite being among the leaders in run support, today Jeremy Hellickson had held the Sox offense to four hits and needed just 68 pitches for the first six innings. \u00a0But Ortiz walked to open the seventh, and Youkilis followed with a single. \u00a0That brought up Gonzalez, who still needed to redeem himself after his costly error. \u00a0He launched a fly into left field, and it settled in the first row of the Monster seats, just inside the fair pole, giving the Sox an instant 3-2 lead. \u00a0Suddenly it was all good. \u00a0Clay was turning it around, Adrian was heating up, and the Sox were finally poised to get over the .500 mark.<\/p>\n

\"Adrian

Adrian Gonzalez is congratulated at the plate after his clutch 3-run homer.<\/p><\/div>\n

Lefty Franklin Morales and righty Vicente Padilla combined to throw a 1-2-3 eighth, and Alfredo Aceves came on for the ninth. \u00a0He walked the leadoff batter, which is never good, but then got a popup for the first out. \u00a0But then Sean Rodriquez took him deep over The Wall for a deflating 4-3 Rays lead. \u00a0The Red Sox went down in order in the ninth. \u00a0It was really disheatening to lose one that way, after being close to getting so many positives out of the game. \u00a0Now they were back under .500 again, and my personal record dropped to 3-5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, May 27, 2012 – Fenway Park, Section 32 Rays 4, Red Sox 3 In the past few weeks, the Red Sox had begun to climb out of their early season hole.\u00a0 A decent road trip saw them split in Tampa, win two of three in Philadelphia, and take another two of three in Baltimore.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2593"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2606,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions\/2606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}