Victor Martinez should have been the offensive hero again last night with an 8th inning home run to give the Sox a 2-1 lead. If he could have a "do over" moment, Terry Francona would have used Daniel Bard at the start of the 8th inning. Instead, Clay Buchholz returned to the mound & gave up the tying homer to B.J. Upton. The Rays end up winning 3-2 in 10 innings on a walk-off homer by Dan Johnson off Scott Atchison.
The split of the first 2 games leaves the Sox with no gain in the standings. They will leave Tampa 4 1/2 back or 6 1/2 back. The Yankees also won last night to keep even with the Rays for first place. John Lackey goes against James Shields tonight on ESPN.
It was a pretty odd set of events for the Rays to score their first run last night. An errant pick-off throw by Buchholz moved Carlos Pena from first to third. Then J.D. Drew made a nice catch on a foul ball that ended up scoring Pena. Should Drew have let the ball drop knowing the run would score? That's a tough one. I think he did the right thing by taking a sure out.
A win today will make the 4th series in a row that the Sox win 2 out of 3. The problem is 2 out of 3 doesn't let you gain ground fast enough on the Yankees or Rays.
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