Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball

Game 6 - Red Sox

Orioles 2, Red Sox 1
Record: 4-2

Pedro Martinez has pitched 15 innings this season, given up 7 hits and 1 earned run, and has no decisions to show for his efforts. The offense cooled off a bit today against Jason Johnson, who probably pitched the best game of his career, giving up 1 hit in 6 1/3 innings. Frustrating loss, though, as the Sox tied the game at 1 in the top of the ninth and should have scored a lot more, having had runners on first and third with nobody out in the inning. Shea Hillenbrand reverted to form with a brutal at-bat to end the inning with the bases loaded. The bullpen imploded once again in the bottom of the last inning, with Chad Fox walking in the winning run.

I had a feeling about this game from the beginning - it just seemed like the Sox were due for a letdown after several tense, emotional victories. I did spend a few minutes bouncing around my living room in the ninth inning, all hopped up on nervous energy - but this loss didn't hurt as bad as the one on Opening Day. I said before the season started that I'd be happy if the Sox were 5-2 after the first two series of the season, and a win tomorrow puts them right there.

One beef, though, about the Orioles radio broadcast team, to whom I listened for the first six innings of the game on a scenic drive from IKEA to my house. It's as if the O's organizational incompetence extends all the way to the booth. Fred Manfra was alternately ignorant - as when he botched the explanation of the Sox' bullpen theory - and inattentive, several times misstating the name of the player at bat. Jim Hunter spent long stretches of the game asleep, apparently, as his color analysis went missing for minutes at a time, and didn't make much impact when he woke up and offered something. The difference between these guys and Jon Miller, who Peter Angelos ran off in his first year as owner, is staggering.