The Minnesota Twins weren't able to avoid the sweep from the Boston Red Sox Wednesday after seventh-inning umpire-related shenanigans turned an incorrectly called triple play into a seven-run fiasco which led to an 18-5 man-handling of the Twins.
Jacoby Ellsbury nailed a career-high four hits, while Manny Ramirez, Kevin Youkilis and Sean Casey had three a piece to aid Boston in their season-best 23-hit game.
The Twins had more than enough chances to take the lead, like wasting a bases-loaded opportunity in the top of the seventh while trailing just 7-5, torturing me as if being at work during the game wasn't bad enough.
The bottom half is when all the nonsense began. Boston had men on second and third when Jason Varitek sunk a liner to center. Denard Span slid for the ball and back-handed it, holding up his glove like he had caught it. The runners tagged up before the umpires signaled the catch late. Span then threw to second to double off Casey and second baseman Alexi Casilla tossed to third to get Mike Lowell, who had already scored.
The official scorer labeled it an 8-4-5 triple play, but the call was reversed (correctly) which led to a prompt ejection for Ron Gardenhire, who Twins Chat called Retardenhire... which kind of made me chuckle.
Minnesota begins a four-game series at Detroit Thursday, with the Tigers trailing them in the AL Central standings by just 3.5 games.
[Boston Globe] | [SOX & Dawgs] | [Boston's Tenth]
3 comments:
Span, you liar! Good try, though.
It seems to me like the umps have been missing a lot of calls this road trip - going both ways. Giving Pudge an extra strike today and having him walk was pretty bad. It's a good thing no runs scored though, or else Gardy would have gone apeshit!
Ellsbury actually has had four hits in one major league game before. It was just in the World Series. Other than Span's screwy play, though, his defense was super impressive in that series...
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