John Lackey: Better Buy Pedroia Dinner

Jacoby led off the first with a HR, so he leads off the blog, too.

That was... man, that was a long first inning. The rest of the game wasn't that bad, but the first inning was something like 45 minutes long. It was also scary. Carl Crawford, who hustled his butt off down to first, came up lame and instantly came out of the game. Hamstring injury. Disabled list. Damnit. The plus side was that we matched the two runs that Lackey allowed (the first on a leadoff HR for CRW). On the Brewers side, Shawn Marcum also came out with an injury after throwing 44 pitches.

In the second after a Munchkin walk and an Ernie double, Youk smacked a 2-run single to put us on top for... oh, about five minutes. Lackey gave the two runs right back in the top of the third, but he settled down after that and still managed to go 8 innings. The key play in the game was the double play Munchkin turned in the 3rd. The double play came after four straight hits and two runs that Lackey surrendered pretty quickly. Describing the DP is impossible. It was incredible. It was a play that only Pedroia could make, and he made it perfectly. After that play, I started feeling good about the game. I know I wasn't the only one. Lackey better have thanked him profusely with words, food, and alcohol.

The Sox weren't done scoring even if the Brewers were. Ernie led off the 5th with a solo home run, finally putting us in the lead for good. Unfortunately, Youkilis came out of the game with 'intestinal distress.' Word to the Red Sox: If you guys would stop spitting on yourselves and high-fiving everyone, intestinal distress wouldn't spread so quickly around the clubhouse. You're all gross. Baseball players are gross. Tangent. Anyway... The sixth was my favorite, because the 6th featured offense from Varitek and that will always beat out anything else. JD walked and Tek doubled him in. Two batters later, Munchkin singled him in. In the 7th, Ronald (who came in to replace Carl) drove in a run, and JD drove in a pair... and that was all the scoring that would happen.

The injuries are starting to pile up again. It's a tad bit frightening, and I know I'm not the only one who has mild PTSD from last season's injury-fest. Crawford was officially put on the DL, and Josh Reddick was called up to take his place. I hope Carl heals quickly, but in the meantime, I will enjoy Reddick's presence.