I mean, I guess you could call that a duel. The final score was 1-3, so I’d say that barely qualifies. One more run and it wouldn’t have been. We lost, though. To his credit, Lester kept us in it. It’s not his fault we couldn’t score more than one run. But I’ll tell you who’s most pleased by this: JP Ricciardi. No doubt about that. His biggest trade bait just pitched a one-run complete game. He just showed the baseball world that, yes, Halladay is worth everybody else’s top prospects plus cash plus draft picks. Not ours, but everybody else’s, sure.
For his part, Lester pitched seven. He gave up three runs on five hits, walked four, and struck out six. Delcarmen took care of the eighth. So like I said, he kept us in it. Three runs for us is nothing. Giving up three runs or less is a quality start and a start the pitcher has a legitimate chance of winning. So this is not Lester’s fault. Actually, this isn’t even the lineup’s fault. This one is Roy Halladay’s fault all the way. Think about it. If the lineup can only score one run against Roy Halladay, can you blame them?
Pedroia and Youk both went two for four. With runners on second and third, Ortiz hit a sac fly to plate our only run in the first inning. Lowell and Lowrie were not in the lineup. Kotsay stole second. Lester made a throwing error. We’re only ahead of the Yanks by one game. Life is…not as great as it could be. Life could be better on the baseball front.
I don’t have to appreciate the fact that Roy Halladay beat us, but the man can pitch. Obviously. And I credit Lester for holding his own. That was a good game to watch if you like pitching, unfortunately especially if you like losing pitching, even though as I said this loss had nothing to do with Lester. Moving forward, we’re off to Texas. Who is no longer ahead of the Angels; they’re now behind by three games, so things are gradually returning to normal. All we need now is for the Dodgers to fall off completely, and we’ll have the best record in the Majors, as it should be. Or we could win a few more games while they lose a few; that works too. At any rate, Smoltz will take on Kevin Millwood. Given the current situation of the AL East, we should probably win this one.
