With a season-ending injury to Daisuke Matsuzaka and trips to the disabled list for Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester, Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield (the oldest man in MLB) has gone from forgotten spare part to a key component of the starting rotation.
That's not an ideal situation but the Red Sox are riding this string of bad luck with injuries into the All-Star break so that they can regroup and hopefully get more healthy.
Last night, Wakefield (5-3) struck out a season-high seven as Boston (51-35) took two out of three from Toronto (42-46) with a 6-4 win at Fenway Park.
Wakefield lasted seven innings, allowing three earned runs on nine hits with a walk.
Daniel Bard got two outs in the eighth before there was a 28-minute rain delay. Dan Wheeler got the final out of the frame after the tarp was pulled off the field. For the second night in a row, Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon had a shaky outing (giving up a run) but he still managed to strike out the side for his 19th save of the season.
Blue Jays starter Ricky Romero (7-8) continued to mystify as he's a quality MLB pitcher against virtually every other team except the Red Sox. He went 4.1 innings, allowing six earned runs on nine hits with three walks and two strikeouts.
Jacoby Ellsbury (3 RBIs, run, stolen base) and Kevin Youkilis (run, RBI) both smacked three hits for Boston's offense.
Yunel Escobar went 4-for-5 for Toronto while Jose Bautista (2 RBIs) and Travis Snider added two hits apiece for the Blue Jays.
Bautista gave Toronto a 1-0 lead in the first as his single drove in Escobar.
Ellsbury quickly tied it up with a leadoff homer, his 10th bomb (a career-high) of the season.
Youkilis followed with his 12th homer of the season in the second inning for a 2-1 Boston lead.
The Blue Jays took one more lead in the third as Bautista drove in Rajai Davis with a sacrifice fly and Adam Lind plated Escobar with an RBI single, 3-2 Toronto.
The Red Sox put up a crooked number in the fourth with four runs. Darnell McDonald tied it with an RBI single, Yamaico Navarro had an RBI double and Ellsbury (who's had a great season thus far) knocked in two with a double of his own.
Escobar got the last Toronto run in the ninth as he hit an RBI single off Papelbon.
The Baltimore Orioles come to Fenway for the last series of the unofficial first half of the 2011 season. The four-game set starts tonight with Andrew Miller taking on O's youngster Jake Arrieta.
Baltimore is still one of the worst teams in the American League and baseball so three out of four isn't too much to ask despite John Lackey and Alfredo Aceves (not to mention Miller) all slated to start in this series.
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