Percolating a pattern of feast and
famine the last four nights, Pawtucket Red Sox cleanup hitter Lars Anderson
piloted his team’s second victory in three tries Tuesday. Batting 2-for-4,
drawing a walk and driving home five runs, Anderson catalyzed one comprehensive
slugfest of an 11-8 victory over the Norfolk Tides at McCoy Stadium.
The visiting Tides outhit the Sox,
16-15, and the teams combined to use nine pitchers. Starters Ross Ohlendorf of
Pawtucket and Eddie Gamboa of Norfolk each incurred 10 hits on their tab,
including two home runs.
Anderson’s cleanup counterpart, Miguel
Tejada, constituted Norfolk’s third base hit of the opening stanza with runners
at the corners, scoring Jamie Hoffmann from third and nudging Bill Hall over
the second with one out.
Ohlendorf hit his next challenger, Joe
Mahoney, to load the sacks for former PawSox catcher Luis Exposito. But he
bailed himself out with only a one-run deficit by benching both Exposito and
Brandon Waring on strikes.
Pawtucket’s bat rack wasted no time
issuing a more massive, albeit largely passive, retort in the bottom half.
Pedro Ciriaco’s base hit was followed by four unanswered walks to force in the equalizer
and the go-ahead run. Later, with two outs, Nate Spears lined a single to left,
scoring Ryan Lavarnway and Anderson for a 4-1 advantage.
Having batted around in the first, the
Sox started from the top and once again loaded the bases with no outs in the
second. Anderson’s single knocked home Ciriaco and Che-Hsuan Lin, though
Lavarnway was thrown out by right field Jai Miller as he tried to advance to
third.
Miller led off the fourth with a home
run to left field, whittling the Tides’ deficit down to 6-2. Lew Ford’s single
and Jamie Hoffmann’s four-pitch walk were immediately followed by Bill Hall’s
blast to left-center, making it 6-5.
Anderson left the yard in the bottom
half with Lavarnway on board for an 8-5 Pawtucket advantage. Josh Kroeger
stashed his own shot over the right field wall, his second in as many days,
later in the inning to make it 9-5.
At that point, PawSox-turned-Tides
manager Ron Johnson made the night’s first pitching change, forking out Gamboa
in favor of Oscar Villarreal. Ohlendorf himself was gone the following inning
with Junichi Tazawa coming out of the bullpen for the fifth.
Tazawa nearly had a 1-2-3 sixth, but
Mahoney’s third strike got away and gave him a free pass to first base.
Exposito subsequently pounced with an RBI double to left-center, which he
extended to a three-bagger while Mahoney hustled home.
But a fugitive third strike on Lin would
also extend Pawtucket’s half of the seventh. With Tony Thomas aboard second
base, Lavarnway sent him home on a single for a 10-6 lead.
With runners at the corners in the
eighth, Tejada grounded into a fielder’s choice that nabbed Hall, but scored
Hoffmann. Mauro Gomez promptly restored Pawtucket’s four-run advantage with a
solo dinger to right.
Red Sox relievers Chorye Spoone and Will
Inman combined to load the bases with no outs in the top of the ninth. Inman
then induced a forceout that scored Davis, but nabbed Ford while putting
Hoffmann and Miller at the corners.
The fielder’s choice paid dividends as
the vacancy at second base opened the door to a game-ending, 4-5-3 double-play.
PawSox
pluses
With everybody picking up at least one
hit, seven individuals crossing the plate at least once and five different
batters logging at least one RBI, Tuesday night’s top-to-bottom offensive
outpouring speaks for itself.
Not to be overlooked on the other side
of the ball, Lin made an impactful return to the McCoy outfield in his first
game since a call-up to Boston, particularly in the third inning.
With the Tides threatening with two men
on and nobody out, Lin all but singlehandedly sustained what was then a 6-1
lead. He hustled to scoop up Exposito’s straightaway single and threw Tejada
out at the plate.
The very next batter, Waring, just
missed at least one or two potential RBIs when Lin caught his fly ball at the
straightaway warning track. The centerfielder then caught Blake Davis’
long-range swat to retire the side.
In immediate relief of Ohlendorf, Tazawa
recompensed his last outing and garnered a much more deserved winning decision,
striking out four and allowing one earned run on two hits in two innings.
Sox
stains
Ohlendorf allowed at least two
baseunners in each of his four innings of work for a total of 14 on the night.
He matched a season-high by authorizing 10 hits while issuing two walks and hit
Mahoney in each of their first two encounters.
Other than that, every active resident of
the McCoy third-base dugout turned in an irreproachable performance. The
closest anyone got to a subpar night was DH Alex Hassan, who didn’t pick up a
hit until his last at-bat in the eighth and was the only member of the order to
record neither a run-scored or run batted in.
Tides
notes
Ohlendorf barely outclassed Gamboa,
which doesn’t say much about either party. The Norfolk starter could only last
3.2 innings, allowing nine earned runs on 10 hits as well as the four
consecutive walks to Lin, Lavarnway, Anderson and Gomez in the first.
The leadoff man Ford was easily the
Tides’ most consistent hitter. He logged a base hit in each of his first four
plate appearances, flied out a few feet shy of the right-field warning track in
the seventh inning, then loaded the bases on a no-out single in the ninth. In
addition, he was the only player on his side not to strike out at any point.
Miscellany
The PawSox broke double digits in the
run column for the fourth time this season and the first since a 15-10 victory
over Durham on April 20.
Ciriaco made it through a game without
striking out for the first time in nine outings.
Norfolk had entered this series having
scored no more than four runs and allowed no more than five in any of their
previous six games. With the series half-over, they have plated six-plus runs
on back-to-back days.
Earlier in the day, Tides pitcher Miguel
Gonzalez was recalled to the parent Baltimore Orioles, who in turn sent down
pitcher Tommy Hunter and outfielder Xavier Avery.
At three hours and 38 minutes, Tuesday night
was the PawSox’ longest game of the 2012 season not to go into extra innings.
