Killer Game: Clay K's Twins

He had six K's, so my title is not a lie, though it does make it sound like he K'd them all. He did not. I also don't want to give the impression that he pitched more than five innings, because again, he did not. However, he did manage to only give up two hits, and if you aren't happy with that, then you have no soul. Or you're not a Sox fan. That's the same thing though, right?

It was nice to walk away with a W after two straight days of getting the proverbial whoop ass can opened on us. It seems that when our boys score first, we win more often. Actually, here are the numbers!

When scoring first: 11-5
When scoring in the first inning: 6-1
Not scoring first:3-14

Sort of feel like those numbers speak for themselves. While I didn't go too deep into them, I can theorize that they show that as Pedroia goes, so go the Sox. Why can I do this? Because I like Pedroia. I'm not going to comb through all the game data and find out if he actually made a difference in every one of those games, but deep down, you know he did. Also, god bless baseball-reference.com. Life could not go on without this website.

Getting off track again. Tangents! Um, so the Sox put four runs on the board, decorating innings 1, 3, and 8. For innings 2,4,5,6, and 7, they were pretty useless.... but man, 1, 3, and 8? Excellent. This game is a nice example of Pedroia impacting the game. We scored first, in the first inning, and Munchkin contributed a walk to the cause, allowing Jed Lowrie to get the scoring started. Isn't that nice of him? I think it is. RBI contributions were also received from Youkilis and Ellsbury. I know, I thought Ellsbury was going on the DL after his collision at home plate last week. Turns out, he might not be made of pretzels after all. Hill, Albers, Bard, and Paps combined to keep the shutout intact after Dahmer left for the day. And... AND there were no balks in this one, which was unbelievably appreciated. Balks are sloppy and they make kittens cry.

I don't want to minimize Clay's effort though. It cannot be forgotten that there was actually a two-hour-and-something-minute rain delay in this one, and Clay actually came back at the end of the rain delay to pitch. It's not often that we see one of our pitchers actually come back to pitch after a rain delay, so major brownie points to the little serial killer for the extra effort. Walking away with a win on a rain-soaked Saturday? Oh yes. I approve.