Red Sox Lose Wild Game Against O’s
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BOSTON – David Ortiz’s fly ball headed toward the right-field fence and for an instant, it appeared the Red Sox would rally for another improbable win. Not this time.
David Newhan caught Ortiz’s bid for three-run homer at the edge of the warning track for the final out, and Baltimore hung on for a 9-7 win last night that dropped Boston 4 1/2 games behind the Yankees going into this weekend’s Fenway Park showdown.
With the Red Sox down 9-5 with two outs in the ninth and the bases loaded, Manny Ramirez came to the plate against B.J. Ryan. Ramirez, whose 17 grand slams are second among active players, hit a two-run single that brought up Ortiz.
Baltimore had broken a 5-all tie in the eighth on pinch-hitter Jose Leon’s bases-loaded single.
Miguel Tejada hit a three-run homer for the Orioles, Todd Williams (2-0) pitched a perfect seventh and the Baltimore bullpen pitched 4 1 /3 scoreless innings, retiring 11 straight, before Boston’s final comeback attempt. Ortiz, who thought he might have given Boston its third consecutive last at-bat win, started up the first-base line before snapping his head back in disappointment.
Still, the Red Sox lead the AL wildcard race by six games over Anaheim and Texas heading into this weekend’s three-game series with the Yankees.
Ramiro Mendoza (1-1) got just one out – thanks to a barehanded play by second baseman Pokey Reese – and allowed two runs.
Mendoza gave up one-out singles to B.J. Surhoff and Javy Lopez before Terry Adams came on and threw a wild pitch that moved the runners to second and third. Larry Bigbie hit it back to the mound to get Surhoff in a rundown that left Baltimore with runners on second and third with two outs.
Geronimo Gil was intentionally walked to load the bases, and Leon singled to right field to make it 7-5. Bigbie and Gil added RBI singles off Byung-Hyun Kim in the ninth to make it 9-5.
With their 78th consecutive sellout this season, and their 142nd in a row overall, the Red Sox set a season record of 2,732,844. Last year, they sold 2,724,162 tickets at Fenway Park, the oldest and smallest park in the majors.
The crowd saw Boston rally from deficits of 1-0, 2-1, and 5-2 before failing to close the final gap after pulling out their previous two victories in their final at-bat.
The Red Sox had hoped to get close enough to the Yankees to take the division lead this weekend. But with nine games left, they need a sweep to have any chance of winning the East and are more realistically looking at opening the playoffs on the road as the wildcard team.