Results tagged “michaelbowden”

Mother Nature was as sick of it as you were. Josh Beckett was a very late scratch with back spasms, so the Sox sent young Michael Bowden to the mound with about 15 minutes' notice to try to stop the Blue Jays. Five innings later, Bowden and reliever Hunter Jones had both been sent to the showers with ERAs over 10. Two innings after that, the skies opened up and put the Sox and the Fenway crowd out of their misery. Final score: 11-5, Toronto, in seven innings.

"I don't really like hitting fourth," said Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, after being moved in the lineup to cover for the ailing Kevin Youkilis. Luckily, at this point, Dustin can hit when he's hitting fourth, or eighth, or underwater, or with one leg pinned up behind his back. Dustin, to put it another way, is on fire. He went 4-for-4, again, to help the Sox batter Chicago 8-2, and now leads the AL at .327.

Daisuke Matsuzaka, whose high pitch counts and low ERA give one the unsettling feeling of watching a chess master who mysteriously sacrifices all of his pawns before winning everything with his bishop and rook, won a tidy 8-0 shutout last night against the White Sox. Dice-K pitched eight innings, during which he struck out eight, walked two, and allowed two hits. The win improved his record to 16-2 and tied him with Hideo Nomo for the most wins by a Japanese native in a single MLB season. "I don't think that just reaching that number in and of itself has that much meaning," Matsuzaka told reporters.