Their best-record-in-baseball status notwithstanding, the Sox should be as energized by the return of their All-Star shortstop -- as well as the impending return of Trot Nixon, who played again yesterday in Florida -- as they were elated by the 2004 debut of Kim, whose performance was both delightful and decorous. Kim's only hand gesture yesterday was a modest fist pump at the end of a five-inning, one-hit performance that was rewarded with a 4-0 Sox win, the team's third straight shutout, in the first game against the Devil Rays.
Garciaparra said it will be at least another two weeks before he comes back, and with any kind of setback it could be even longer, regardless of how good he looked yesterday. But in the interim the Sox raised their record to 15-6 after beating the Devil Rays in the second game, 7-3, their sixth straight win and ninth in the last 10 games. "If you're going to be here all day, the best way to go about it is to win two," said Terry Francona, whose bullpen has now strung together 32 1/3 scoreless innings over the last 11 games, the longest streak by a Sox bullpen in the more than 30 years since Elias Sports Bureau has kept track of such information.
Scott Williamson and Keith Foulke closed out the night with a scoreless inning apiece after volunteer reliever Tim Wakefield, Mike Timlin, and Alan Embree shut down the D-Rays over the last four innings in the matinee.
"It's a lot of fun," said Derek Lowe, who won the nightcap even though he spotted the D-Rays two unearned runs in the first, ending a stretch of 32 straight scoreless innings dating to the seventh inning of Saturday's 3-2, 12-inning win over the Yankees in New York. "The starters are giving us the innings and obviously the bullpen is 32 scoreless. I said in spring training, we have a rotation like ours, you are not going to go on a losing streak, and when you have all five guys pitching well, you are going to be watching wins."
