In the end, this 9-8 Red Sox loss to the Mariners was on reliever Mike Timlin, who gave up the walkoff home run to Richie Sexson, the tallest (6 feet 8 inches) Seattle pro athlete not playing for the SuperSonics, negating the two-out, game-tying home run Jason Varitek hit in the top of the ninth off M's closer J.J. Putz and giving the home team the rubber game of this three-game set.
``That's as pretty a swing as he's taken in a long time," Sox manager Terry Francona said of Varitek's home run, his second in three games here and one that nearly cracked the glass window of the ``Hit It Here" Cafe in the first deck of the right-field stands. ``He got us back in the right part of the game.
``But then Sexson came up and broke our hearts."
The real kick to another part of the Sox anatomy, however, came in the eighth inning, when Crisp and Ramírez collaborated on an inside-the-park home run by Adrian Beltre that in its own way unfolded as weirdly as the last inside-the-parker hit against the Sox, the one in which a diving Ramírez came out of nowhere to cut off Johnny Damon's throw to the infield (``Manny jumps and makes a highlight catch," Damon said of that play, which came almost two years to the day -- July 22, 2004 -- of yesterday's misadventure. ``Unfortunately, it was an embarrassing one for me and him.")
Timlin was the victim of yesterday's play, when Crisp ran back to the Nikon sign in left-center, anticipating he would have to vault above the fence to keep the ball in play. Instead, the ball hit the sign almost out of camera range from where Crisp made his leap -- behind him, 6 feet to his right.
``I thought I had a bead on it," said Crisp, who noted the sun was troublesome but didn't pin blame on the way the planets were aligned.
``I went where I thought it would be, I took my eyes off it for a few seconds. I was going to rob him, but it landed right behind me."
After that? ``Chaos ensued," Timlin said. ``Nothing I can do but stand there."
