Sox surprise Arizona
Red Sox 5, Diamondbacks 4
Fenway has seemed like an indestructible fortress to opposing baseball teams all season-long, and Boston’s baseball club helped keep that mystique intact last night with a late inning, four-run rally.
The Sox won their second home game in the last five tries and served up an Interleague smackdown to the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 5-4 win.
For the second straight evening, the Diamondbacks starting pitcher tamed the Boston bats through the early innings and snake-bit the highest on base percentage club in the majors. But unlike Monday’s 2-1 defeat, the Sox got the last laugh in this one.
Down 4-1 in the bottom of the eighth, the Sox staged a three-run rally against the Arizona bullpen with two outs that lifted them to victory. Dustin Pedroia touched up Diamondbacks reliever Chad Qualls for an RBI single to right-center field that made it a two-run ballgame, and a clutch two-run Mike Lowell double off the Monster tied things up at four. Sox catcher Jason Varitek followed by rifling an RBI single to right for the game-winner.
Arizona lefty Doug Davis, making his seventh start since heroically returning from in-season treatment for thyroid cancer, was in complete control of the game prior to the bullpen breakdown. The southpaw allowed three runs on seven hits and fanned six Sox batters in his seven-plus innings of work.
Boston’s first run came in the very first inning when Pedroia — who is hitting over .400 in his last 12 games and slowly climbing back toward a .300 batting average — scorched a Davis heater into the Monster Seats for a solo homer.
Sox rookie Justin Masterson continues to do yeoman’s work for the Sox while filling in for injured starters, but he experienced a little bit of mound turbulence in the second and third frames.
D-Backs designated hitter Chad Tracy launched a Masterson offering into the visiting bullpen for a three-run homer, and looked like the difference-maker prior to Boston’s eighth inning rescue mission. Rookie reliever Chris Smith picked up his first big league win in only his second Major League appearance after tossing two innings of scoreless relief.