Red Sox Win! Red Sox Win! Red Sox Win!

You're once, twice, three times...
No, that one won't work.

Three times a charm?
Naah, been done before.

Three's company?
No, not that one, either.

I'm wrackin' the ol' noggin tryin' to come up with some snappy title to this post about the Red Sox coming back 3 (three) times tonight, but not having much luck, so I'm going to type away and see if any lightbulbs flash on along the way.

Paul Byrd was adequate tonight. (I promise no aviary humor tonight.) He went 5+ innings allowing only 3 runs to score by the Angels. Well, there is the matter of the 9 hits he allowed, but as the final score would indicate, it's not how many hits you make, it's how many runs you score. Despite holding the Halos to 3 runs, he left the game on the short end of 3-0 deficit. Not to worry as the Sox scored 5 times in the bottom of the 6th (comeback #1) After Byrd handed over the ball to the bullpen, Saito came in and pitched 1 inning and allowed another run in. Next up was Ramirez who had nothin', nada, zippo, zilch tonight as he allowed 3 more Angels around the diamond while registering only 1 out. So now the Sox are down 7-5. (Around about that time the Bums from da Bronx tallied a comeback of their own, as they were down 2-4 and came back to beat Toronto 5-4.) The Sox scored twice in the 8th for comeback #2, tying the game, but not for long, as the Angels put another run up in the top of the 9th. (Are you following all this?) Down by 1 run in the bottom of the 9th, Ortiz draws a 2 out walk. Joey Gathright enters to run for Papi. J.D. Drew singles. Reddick had pinch hit earlier for 'Tek and scored one of the 8th inning runs, so now enter Dusty Brown at catcher. Enter Jed Lowrie to pinch hit for Brown before he even had a chance to step up to the plate. Lowrie singles. Nick Green coaxed a walk to load the bases. Next up, A-Gonz who singled to drive in Drew and win the game.

Earlier I said it's not how many hits, but how many runs that counts (Baseball 101.) The Sox had 13 of 'em tonight, but the Halos had 17. Thankfully, the Sox pitchers scattered them just barely enough to offset that lopsided statistic.

Now, about this shortstop dilemma. I commented on an earlier post about the possibility of a long term future for Alex Gonzalez in a Sox uni. The usually light hitting (yet vacuum like sweeping of just about any ball hit in between 2nd and 3rd bases) Gonzalez was hitting at a fugly .210 clip when he arrived for his 2nd tour of duty in Boston. He has lifted his batting average by a full 25 points in the past month. Since August 16th, he has 29 hits in 93 at-bats for a nice .312 average. He's only 32 years old. Both Lowell and Jeter are 35 years old, and are doing just fine, thank you very much. Theo would do well to lock him up for the next 3 years.

Despite winning 7 in a row, the Sox remain 6.5 games behind the Yanks, but only 5 behind in the loss column. Texas has lost 4 in a row, distancing themselves from the Red Sox in the Wild Card race by 6.5 games.

Sox Win 9-8 BOX SCORE