A Beauty........And A Beast...And A Manager's Blunder

What can you say about game one? Let me try. Josh Beckett pitched well enough to get the loss, although he WAS better than his last start. Stellar bullpen work by David Riske and the eventual winner, Manny Delcarmen, provided the stage for Big Papi's walk off wonder. And crowd #1 went home happy.
Boy, I wish I could stop there and say it was a wonderful winning Sunday, but....nope. David Pauley clearly didn't have it, and after his 8 hits given up in 1 plus innings, I sat there thinking to myself, "Wow, Francona is willing to throw any chance of winning this game in order to save the bullpen." Hey Tito, TODAY IS A DAY OFF!!! But the damage was done, Julia Tavarez and Rudy Seanez and Keith Foulke combined to give up more hits in a 9 inning game than any Sox team in 7 years. Sept. 22, 1999 to be exact. But it was Francona's willingness to sit on his ass when he wasn't hiding from the cameras in the second inning and give up the ghost that clearly made me mad as hell.
Batting stars of the twin bill? Papi with 4 hits, and the walf off, Mark Loretta with 5 hits, and Mike Lowell, who has been in a mini-slump but bounced back in the 2nd game with 2 hits. Two images will forever stay with me. Papi as he trotted around the bases, huge grin plastered across his face in the 9th, and Terry Francona, who was too ashamed in inning #2 to show his face in the dugout as he figuratively threw in the towel in inning # 2 of game 2. Bad job, Terry.