THE GOOD
THE BAD
THE UGLY
Manny Ramirez was everywhere in this game. His baserunning error crushed a rally early, his homerun gave the Sox a lead, and he scored thanks to a dropped ball at the plate.
This game was a lot like Manny's night. Sometimes players made great plays, sometimes they made bad plays, and sometimes they made ugly plays.
Schilling was good, bad, and ugly. He had a season high in strikeouts with 8, but he also had a season high in earned runs with 5. He should have been pulled before the 7th as he was 110 pitches deep and didn't look that sharp. The bullpen was fresh after an off day, so bringing in Foulke, Timlin, and Papelbon would have made sense. But Francona decided not to do it.
Foulke and Timlin had similar good, bad, and ugly pitching performances. Foulke got win #1 of the season, and Timlin got his 6th Hold. Papelbon was flat out good in the 9th with a perfect 1-2-3 inning and keeping the ball in the infield the entire time. Papelbon seems to excel when the game is close. He tied a Major League rookie record for Saves in a month with 9.
Manny had a huge night and will take down his 2nd Man of the Game of 2006. Yes, he screwed up on the bases, but he made up for it at the plate with a huge 3 run homer, his 10th, 11th and 12th RBI of the year, and 3 hits. He also walked.
Tomorrow night, Wakefield faces off against 1-1 Cliff Lee.
