CARRABIS 13

Male 19 years old SAUGUS, MA

A tough loss for the Red Sox, a tough loss for Josh Beckett, but the only loss we should be talking about is home plate umpire Marty Foster losing his job. News flash: the Red Sox and Yankees are in a pennant race. This was a 1-0 game with the game on the line. Mike Lowell put up one of the best, if not the best at bat of the entire night and he was called out on a phantom strike three, unacceptable. We as fans can accept defeat when we are beaten fair and square, but not tonight.

With Kevin Youkilis standing at first base having singled off of Mariano Rivera in search of a five-out save, Mike Lowell put up a battle against the Yankee closer in an eight-pitch at bat. Fouling off pitch after pitch, Mike Lowell dug in for the eighth pitch of the at bat. Rivera’s eighth pitch to Lowell was a 94 MPH fastball a whole six inches off the plate on the inside corner coming close to skimming the jersey of Mike Lowell. Home plate umpire Marty Foster rung up Lowell as the infuriated third baseman for the Red Sox proceeded to publicly display his displeasure with Foster’s ridiculous third-strike call.

Lowell was ejected from the game for the first time in his career since the 2002 season and there were two outs in the bottom of the ninth. JD Drew was the third out of the inning falling victim to Mariano Rivera on a 93 MPH cut fastball that also was a questionable third strike call but not as blatant as Lowell’s alleged backwards K. Rivera gets the save, Chamberlain gets the win, Lowell gets ejected, Red Sox fans get a headache and a very frustrating loss. The story of this game was all about pitching, just as advertised. Fans knew they were going to get a pitcher’s duel, and that’s exactly what this game was.

Joba Chamberlain recorded his longest outing as a Major League starter by going seven shutout innings giving up three hits, walking just one and striking out nine. Also to be noted was that there was no love-love between Joba Chamberlain and Kevin Youkilis. With a 2-0 count and the score 1-0, Chamberlain let a fastball ride high and in the process almost took off the head of Kevin Youkilis, again. Warnings were issued to both dugouts as Chamberlain went on to say after the game that it was "unintentional". Countering Chamberlains brilliant performance was the masterful pitching of Josh Beckett. A tough luck loss for Beckett was capped off with a line of seven complete innings of one-run ball. Beckett fanned six batters in his seven innings of work, walking just one and giving up a single run to account for a loss.

The run came on an infield hit by Jason Giambi with the infield shifted over playing the lefty to pull. With a runner on third, the dribbler wandered it’s way over to the shortstop position which was also no-man’s land at the time. The run scored, and that was the only run of the game. The Red Sox really could have used the offense of Manny Ramirez but the power-hitting outfielder took himself out of the lineup just hours before the first pitch. David Ortiz was 1-for-4 in his return to the Red Sox since being out of action as far back as late May. Boston left fourteen men on base. Needless to say, Beckett was on, the offense…not so much.

The middle game of this series will feature the veteran Yankee left-hander Andy Pettitte going up against the knuckle-baller, Tim Wakefield. Both pitchers have seven losses on the season but Pettitte has eleven wins to Wakefield’s six. The win-loss record for both pitchers does not reflect their seasons as Wakefield carries the lower earned run average (3.69) compared to Andy Pettitte (3.86). Tim Wakefield is 3-4 with an ERA of 2.43 in his last ten starts racking up 49 strikeouts in 70.1 innings of work. Wakefield has also given the Red Sox seven or more innings in nine of his last ten starts.

-Jared Carrabis