Great Arizona Pitching Dooms Boston...D'backs 2 Red Sox 1...More About Carlin

What can you say about last night's game except this - Dan Haren was unbeatable. The Red Sox only managed two hits with no runs in the seven innings he pitched, and scored their only run off Pena, who pitched the eighth. Josh Beckett, who knew he had to go eight innings to give the overworked Boston bullpen a breather, did exactly that, and he pitched great, too. He would have won most games with a pitching line like last night's. But a bobble by Moss, who was playing first base because Kevin Youkilis was hit below his right eye on a one-hop throw from Mike Lowell, proved costly, allowing one of the two D'back runs to score. Youk was taken out immediately because the eye started to swell within seconds. Today, he will wake up with quite the shiner, and I hope that's all. The D'backs scored both of their runs in that seventh inning, and they stood up. But the story of the game was Arizona pitcher Dan Haren, who is one of the best in all of baseball. Here's what Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell had to say about him..

“He’s tough. It doesn’t matter who he’s pitching against, he’s tough, he throws balls around the black pretty much the whole time with all his pitches,” Beckett said. “That’s why he’s regarded as one of the best.”
“He was working ahead, he was mixing up his pitches. He’s got good stuff. He’s an elite pitcher,” Mike Lowell said. “It seemed like we were matching him pound for pound there. It was a pretty well-played game, a pretty well-pitched game.”

Indeed, the Red Sox were a bounce, maybe a slugger away from being able to win this one, but you know the old adage...good pitching beats good hitting. It sure did last night at Friendly Fenway. By the way, the Arizona Diamondbacks have played at Fenway four times and have yet to lose. The only other team that can make the same claim is the Chicago Cubs. They have never played there.

Curt Schilling's surgery was successful, and from what I've read so far, he has a great shot at being able to pitch in 2009. For someone. Hey, as always, be well. And thank you for your great comments about the late George Carlin. I listened to a 4am Carlin radio interview from 1999 on "Coast To Coast AM" this morning, and he said he thought he'd live to be 94. George, I wish you had been right. Then we'd still be able to laugh with you and your wonderful words of comic wisdom. That's EXACTLY what they were. If you have any thoughts and are in the mood to type a few syllables, that would be great. Thanks! Click on the title of this post for a special tribute to George, written by Ray Raymond. If his name is not familiar to you, it will be after you read his piece. It has a video clip included. I know you will enjoy it, so click! Thanks. And for more of his brilliant humor, just copy and paste this...I just did, and I was enchanted by his wonderfulness all over again. Here it is, and there's SO much there...

http://www.georgecarlin.magnify.net/ You can do it!