Yankee Stew....

The problem with New York, is everything is bigger and more hyped.  Yankee manager Joe Girardi held a well publicized meeting after thursday nights debacle.  The Yanks repsonded by pounding the Sox for one inning.  After that one inning it was all Red Sox.

  Josh Beckett pitched well after that first inning, not allowing another Yankee run the next five innings he pitched.  For the game Beckett allowed only four hits, and two walks.  He struck out four, and threw 102 pitches en route to giving up three earned runs.  Beckett really only ran into trouble one more time, a base loaded situation he got Jose Molina to ground out to end.

  The Sox bats were good not great yesterday, leaving men in scoring position all day.  The heart of the Sox line-up, J.D. Drew and Manny Rameriz combined to go 1-7, compounding the problem.  Luckily for the Sox Mike Lowell was again a one man wrecking crew, driving in four of the Sox six runs.  Lowell had a sac-fly and a three run homer to help out-pace the Yanks yesterday.  Dustin Pedoria and Jacoby Ellsbury helped set the pace yesterday, as they combined to go 5-9 in thier at bats.

  The Sox bullpen was again a bunch of guys living on the edge.  Hideki Okajima loaded the bases before he succumbed to Manny Delcarman.  Then Terry Francona brings in Delcarmen with bases loaded to face A-Rod.  The move worked for Franconca this time, however it shows that Francona is an idoit and he is far too trusting with certain members of the bullpen corp.  Jonathan Papelbon, who had not worked in a week, was brought in to finish the 9th.  It would have been a 1-2-3-4 9th if not for a blown call by third base umpire Marty Bell.  Bell said that Derek Jeter's fly-out to the end the game, was actually a r.b.i. double, giving the Yanks new life with two outs.  Bobby Abreu however flied out and the game finally ended.  I know the umpires wanted to overule that catch for the Yankees too.  Many replays have now shown that the umps blew a really obvious call, one that could have cost the Sox the game. 

  The Sox now have two chances to take this series, one with Justin Masterson, and the other with Tim Wakefield.  Hopefully this will happen, however the Sox did what they needed to do, take 2 out of four from the Yanks.  For the Yanks, yesterday's loss drops them to 4th place in the American League East.  This is the lowest and the latest the Yanks have been in fourth since 1992.