The Red Sox scored 11 runs on 17 hits last night at Fenway Park and David Ortiz didn't have one of them. Yet he was surrounded by media after the game, probably wondering why anyone would want to speak to him. But the 11-0 win over the Oakland A's, behind Tim Wakefield, proved the Red Sox don't have to rely on Ortiz, who went 0 for 6, or Manny Ramirez, who went 0 for 3.
What had become a two-man lineup expanded a bit last night.
"I didn't get no hits and we scored 11 runs. That tells you how good our team is. That's the way it's supposed to be," said Ortiz after the Sox dismantled the A's, one of the teams they are competing against in the wild-card race.
It wasn't Ortiz and it wasn't Ramirez. It was Johnny Damon's 5 for 6, Bill Mueller's three-run homer, Kevin Millar's three hits and two RBIs, and Nomar Garciaparra's two RBIs. It was Wakefield's seven shutout innings. It was all of the above. It was finally a break for manager Terry Francona, whose postgame press conferences have been dreadful for him, for Red Sox Nation, and the players.
There was finally a positive aura around a team that has already been written off by some of their fans. This wasn't the moribund atmosphere seen in New York and Atlanta the past week, where the Sox managed one win in six games. Even the scoreboard made them smile. The Yankees lost to the Tigers, 9-1. Texas, another potential wild-card competitor, lost, 4-1, at Cleveland. The Rangers come to Fenway for a three-game set beginning Friday.
"We played good tonight," said Francona. "I actually think those 12-inning games [one 13-inning game vs. New York and a 12-inning game vs. Atlanta], I thought we played very good baseball, we just didn't have enough to win a game, and then the wheels came off the last day in Atlanta. So rather than look at it like that, I chose to look at it like we played a real good game tonight and we have something to build on."
The Sox might make a blockbuster deal to shake things up before the trading deadline, but last night was one of those teasers for general manager Theo Epstein, a reason not to do anything. Epstein did his part trying to change the team's luck by sitting in the press box with vice president of baseball operations Mike Port rather than in his seat behind home plate. He spent the early afternoon walking the field with Francona.
And the team went out and played well.
"We expect to do that," said Damon of the offensive explosion. "This whole team needed something like that. It's also a big confidence booster for this team when you do it against a guy like Barry Zito. His curveball was so good, you couldn't even swing at it. It was the best curveball I'd seen in a long time."
