It had been a while since the Red Sox last won. Since beating the Twins 6-4 on Sunday, the Sox had dropped 5 straight. Today, they snapped that streak with a shutout win over the Orioles.
The shutout began with Tim Wakefield, who had the Knuckleball dancing all day, inducing a lot of bad contact resulting in infield flies or weak grounders. Wake allowed only 2 hits and 2 walks over 5 innings while striking out three--a significant improvement over the 5 runs he allowed over 3.2 innings in his last outing. Manny Delcarmen, Francisco Fernando Cabrera, Brian Shouse, and Joe Nelson all added their own scoreless innings to finish blanking the Orioles.
For the first three innings, Chris Tillman looked every bit as good, as he held the Sox hitless through 3 innings. The only runner that had reached going into the 4th was Adrian Beltre on a dropped third strike. The Sox struck quickly in the fourth, though, as Pedroia hit a leadoff double before Youk sent one over the wall in left for his first homer of spring training. The Sox would add another in the 7th off Marco Scutaro's first bomb with the Red Sox, and then 3 more in the 8th as Tug Hullet and minor leaguers Mark Wagner, Daniel Nava, and Pete Hissey would put together 4 hits off of Orioles reliever Alfredo Simon.
Notes:
- David Ortiz went hitless for the first time in a while, though he did draw a walk. Let's all panic!
- Pete Hissey has 2 hits in his first two at bats with the big league spring training team. His minor league numbers aren't too pretty, but it would be a mistake to sleep on Pete