August 16, 2011

G121: Rays 6, Red Sox 2

Rays     - 020 010 030 - 6 12  0
Red Sox  - 001 001 000 - 2  3  1
The Red Sox turned their first triple play in more than 17 years (John Valentin, unassisted, July 8, 1994, against Seattle at Fenway).

With runners on first and second in the fourth, Sean Rodriguez hit a ground ball to Jed Lowrie near third base. Lowrie stepped on the bag and start a 5-4-3 triplet-killing (Lowrie to Dustin Pedroia to Adrian Gonzalez). It was the first triple play turned by the Red Sox on a ground ball since August 18, 1965, when Brooks Robinson hit into a 5-4-3-5 TP.

NESN said it was the 30th triple play in team history, but an MLB story cites SABR saying it was #29.

The Brewers turned a triple play against the Dodgers on Monday night, so if a team can turn three on Wednesday, we will have had triple plays on three consecutive days. It has happened once before: May 29-31, 1927 (St. Louis Browns, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers).

The Red Sox had only three hits in each game. Before today, in the last 31 years, the Red Sox were 9-143 in games in which they had three hits. So today's 1-1 showing is pretty good.

Jason Varitek (#8) and Jacoby Ellsbury (#22) hit solo home runs. Ellsbury is the first Red Sox player to hit home runs in both games of a doubleheader since Trot Nixon did it on June 4, 2003.

Bedard pitched well again (6-7-3-0-6, 102), but he was (again) squeezed like a lemon by the home plate umpire. He threw 36 pitches in the second inning, and although he did not walk anyone, the Rays fouled off 18 pitches. Matt Albers had a very bad eighth inning, the sordid details of which you can find elsewhere.

Neimann (9-3-2-1-10, 114) went the distance. The Brewers were the last team to have two complete games in a doubleheader: August 13, 1993 (Angel Miranda and Ricky Bones).

Last time two left-handers started both games of a doubleheader for the Red Sox: April 26, 1992 (Matt Young and Joe Hesketh).
Example
Jeff Niemann / Erik Bedard

Second game of today's day-night doubleheader. Game thread here.

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