ANOTHER Low Scoring Game, But The Red Sox Win!

I swear, these low scoring games are going to be my undoing. The Boston Red Sox are just plain NOT hitting, but last night they prevailed over the pitching poor Texas Rangers. And the way the Sox have been swinging their bats, you'd never know that Texas lacks quality pitching. But all's well that ends well, and it did, 2-1 Sox.
The Sox scored the first run of the game in the 4th, the Rangers tied it in the 5th, and the Sox scored the winning run in the bottom half of that frame. Wakes struggled but pitched 6 2/3 innings for the win. Little Manny Delcarmen called his 7th inning strikeout of Sammy Sosa the biggest of his career. From the Courant........

BOSTON - "Manny Delcarmen called it the biggest strikeout of his career.
Facing Sammy Sosa with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh Friday, trying to protect a one-run lead, Delcarmen appeared all too aware of how big a strikeout would be. After walking Michael Young to bring Sosa to the plate, Delcarmen started baseball's newest 600-homer man with two straight balls.
"I'm trying to save [Tim] Wakefield's win and I'm like [sigh], just stay under control," Delcarmen said. "Mikey Lowell came by and said, `Hey dude, just trust yourself. They're not going to hit your fastball.'"
Sosa never did. After Delcarmen ran the count to 3-and-1, he blew two 96 mph fastballs past Sosa, helping to preserve a 2-1 victory before 36,756 at Fenway Park."

Peter here. That was nervous inning number one. There was one more to come. After the Darkman, Hideki Okajima, pitched an easy and effortless 8th, and where would we be without him, it was Paps time. 27 pitches of Paps. A close call at first infuriated him, and it resulted in Kenny Lofton being on base. He stole second, and lo and behold, nervous time was upon us yet again. But after a hit batsman, a delirious, fist-pumping, jump-in-the-air Paps struck out Michael Young to end the game. And my night!
So the Sox move to 49-29, tops in the AL East by a wide margin. These pre-All Star games are so important, for the Sox could open up an insurmountable lead should they win a good portion of those games. But sometimes things don't work out exactly as planned. We'll wait and see, anguish and delight written across all our faces and within our souls in the days to come.
It'll be Robinson Tejeda facing our ace, Josh "Baseball" Beckett as we go for win number fifty. Let's hope the Sox lumber returns and shows its face. Bigtime. My nerves can use the rest. Click on the title of this post for more on the game. And have a wonderful weekend. GO SOX. Forever.