Nick Green, who began the year as the Sox' third-string shortstop, may not stand out like flashy sparkles in the water or stars in the sky. But with Jed Lowrie out for who-knows-how-long, and Julio Lugo having been told that the Red Sox home park has been moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming (good move by the front office, by the way), the SS job may be Green's for the forseeable future. Keep having days like yesterday, Nick, and we'll all know why.
Green pushed a fog-assisted popup juuuuuust past the Pesky Pole in right for his first walk-off homer as a Red Sox, beating the Braves 6-5 (his previous walk-off homer, in 2004, helped the Braves beat the Red Sox, so that's forgiven). It wasn't exactly a vintage-04 Ortiz boomer; Green said, "I thought I hit it decent to right field but I thought it was going to be an out because the wind was so bad." Terry Francona: "I enjoyed it. Didn’t see it." Luckily the umps did. And now Green is Bob Ryan's new favorite white player.
The wind and the fog made for a weird game. It was certainly responsible for David Ortiz' popup landing untouched between two Braves infielders. It might have gotten in the ump's eyes when he failed to call J.D. Drew out on strikes in the seventh, leading to three Braves ejections. It was the 145th career ejection for skipper Bobby Cox, which sounds like a lot until you realize that's like one a year since he's been managing the Braves.
The Sox get a day off now before finishing interleague play with a trip to Washington and Atlanta. The godawful Nationals are seven games back of the 29th best team in the majors, but they did just take four out of six from the Yankees and Blue Jays, so make what you will of that.
Good weekend for local soccer fans! The Revolution won the first game in defense of their SuperLiga championship last year, beating Santos Laguna 4-2. Kheli Dube assisted on the go-ahead goal and scored the backbreaker, before some chippy play made everyone sad (kind of like last year). On a global stage, the US National Team is advancing in the Confederations Cup. They needed a 3-goal win over Egypt and a 3-goal loss by Italy. It happened, and if you bet money on that happening, enjoy your new mansion.
The NBA Draft is Thursday. Some people say that the Celtics are possibly going to trade Ray Allen, or Rajon Rondo, or Kendrick Perkins, or all of them, or none of them, or who knows what. The only guys we're pretty sure won't be traded are Garnett and Scalabrine. Other than that, we're just going to buckle our seatbelts, keep the whiskey handy, and trust that Danny Ainge knows what he's doing.
Image from Wikipedia.
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