CARRABIS 13	Male 19 years old SAUGUS, MA
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Congratulations Radhames Liz, that was the worst outing by a starting pitcher I think I have perhaps ever seen in my baseball-viewing career. After the first few pitches thrown, it didn’t take a professional baseball analyst to determine that Liz was not a “pitcher” he was a “thrower”. He is one of those guys that just rears back and gasses the ball as hard as he can and has absolutely not idea where it’s going. Well Radhames, I’ve got some news for you, that may work with other teams but it’s not going to fly with the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox lineup features some of the most patient hitters in the league from leadoff all the way down to the nine slot.

Radhames Liz lasted a mere two and one thirds innings and was just plain awful. His game plan was to just toe the rubber and throw the ball as hard as he could lighting up the gun multiple times in the 98-mile an hour range. The only problem was that these 98 mile an hour fastballs were going either nowhere near the strike zone or right down the middle of the plate. The Red Sox offense is just too patient and too talented to not light this guy up.

If you’re not hitting your spots (and believe me, Liz was not even close, he was missing whole sides of the plate) the Red Sox will punish you. The Red Sox pounded every mistake that he made to the point where this game was over by the third inning. Boston put up their second seven-run inning in the past three games in the bottom of the third.

The Red Sox kicked off their run scoring parade right away in the bottom of the first inning when JD Drew teed off on a 98 mile an hour fastball and drove it to the opposite field over the wall in left. Manny Ramirez was not to be shown up and followed suit with a solo shot of his own into the Red Sox bullpen to give Boston the 2-0 advantage. The fastball to Ramirez clocked at 99 on the gun, but needless to say, Ramirez was not impressed.

The no control approach to pitching for Liz came back to bite him in the bottom of the third when a combination of a single by Dustin Pedroia, a walk to JD Drew, hitting Manny Ramirez with a 95-mile an hour fastball in the hip to load the bases and then following that up with a walk to Mike Lowell on five pitches to walk in a run. With the bases still loaded, Kevin Youkilis put the game to bed with his fifteenth home run of the season which if you do the math, three guys on, that’s a grand slam.

Liz didn’t exactly “regain form”, he instead walked the next batter in Sean Casey. The Red Sox would reload the bases in the very same inning for Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia who saw his hitting streak snapped yesterday began a new one with a double that one-hopped off the wall in left to drive in two as if the game wasn’t broken open enough.

Enough couldn’t be said about the efforts of Tim Wakefield. He continues to be one of the most consistent pitchers on the staff with the third lowest ERA on the club behind Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester. Although the Red Sox average somewhere around three runs a game for Wakefield, tonight was his lucky night. If you saw the game live then you would agree that the umpire was throwing the new baseballs back to Wakefield faster than Wakefield was throwing them to home plate. Also if you saw the game live, you would agree that it didn’t matter because Wake’s knuckleball was dancing the night away driving the Orioles out of their minds.

Wakefield threw seven very strong innings retiring the last fifteen consecutive starts making things look very easy. The last base runner that the Orioles had running on Wakefield was in the third inning and it was on a walk. Just two hits allowed, one being a solo home run and that run accounted for the only run that the Orioles would tag Wakefield for. Tim Wakefield has pitched phenomenally in his last nine starts posting an ERA of 1.99.

With all the offensive production as of late, still none is coming from the starting shortstop position. With Julio Lugo now officially on the 15-day disabled list with a injury to his quad that is said to be an injury that will take 4-6 weeks to fully heal, Jed Lowrie and Alex Cora will split time at short. With the game being a blowout, Mike Lowell was taken out of the game and Jed Lowrie slid over to third. Lowrie finished the night 0-for-4. Alex Cora pinch hit for Mike Lowell in the bottom of the eighth and knocked in a run with an RBI single.

As if this beat down wasn’t good enough news as it is, the Tampa Bay Rays are showing shades of the “Devil” Rays they once were having lost their sixth straight game all while coughing up a four game lead which is now down to a miniscule half game lead with one game remaining for both clubs before the All Star break. The Rays put up a fight in the eighth inning down 7-0 to come back and score four runs all with two outs but eventually fell to the Cleveland Indians once again by a score of 8-4 to put first place in reach before the unofficial end to the first half of the regular season.