For a while, this game was interesting. Not for the right reasons, but it was interesting nonetheless.
During and after the 28 minutes where the Sox failed to record an out in the fifth inning, it became a colossal bore.
Here's the indictment of this game: It was far more entertaining in the third inning when Edwin Jackson walked four straight Yankees followed by a sac fly, giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead while keeping the no-hitter intact.
There was nothing funny about Jackson and Tony Pena's inability to retire any of the first nine Yankees who came to the plate in the fifth inning. Jackson allowed the cycle -- homer, double, triple and single -- before departing the game due to ineffectiveness, and Tony Pena went single, double, intentional walk, single, walk and ball one before departing the game due to elbow discomfort. And ineffectiveness.
Somehow, Will Ohman entered the game and retired the next three to keep it an 8-0 game. But in the end, that's all he did.
Meanwhile, the Sox offense set the tone for itself in the top of the first. Brent Lillibridge reached on an error, and went to third on Alexei Ramirez's single. Ramirez moved to second on the throw.
Much like the night before, a promising start only promised disappointment. Lillibridge was thrown out at home on a grounder to third, and no runs would score until the seventh. And they needed more Yankee errors for their three runs.
Brent Morel reached when Eduardo Nunez's throw sailed on him with two outs. He went to second on a balk (C.C. Sabathia dropped the ball, literally), and then to third when Sabathia didn't cover first on a grounder to the right side. He thought it was going to be a 4-3, but Eric Chavez's Gold-Glove-third-baseman range triggered him to hunt down the grounder himself, leaving the base unoccupied.
Alexei Ramirez dropped a gork shot to put the first run on the board, and Carlos Quentin finally delivered a legitimate hit with a wallbanger to right. Then he spoiled the fun by getting caught between first and second when Nick Swisher played the wall well. At least he kept the rundown alive long enough for the second run to score.
Quentin's baserunning error was among a number of gaffes, including:
- Quentin himself failing to hunt down a carom, turning a double into a triple.
- Alexei Ramirez letting a pop-up drop behind him after doing the hard work of chasing it down the left field line. Maybe he thought Juan Pierre was playing left instead of Juan Pierre.
- Alex Rios made a difficult running catch -- he made it harder than he had to be with an arc of a route -- and jammed his foot against the base of the wall.
"Even the great plays were ugly" was another mini-theme of the night. Gordon Beckham started a 4-6-3 double play with a diving stab on a grounder up the middle, but when he tried to shovel the ball, it ended up rolling toward second instead. Ramirez picked him up by picking it up and firing to first to complete the play.
Record: 10-16 | Box score | Play-by-play