A case of the drops

Red Sox lose more ground when Tigers get ninth life

August 16, 2006|Globe Staff

Confusion reigned. Was the ball fair or foul? Was Craig Monroe out at first? What, exactly, had just transpired?

None of the answers was immediately apparent. But, as the minutes ticked off and Detroit manager Jim Leyland and first base umpire Bruce Froemming went tete-a-tete by the first base bag, everything became remarkably clear.

Fair ball, which clanked off Wily Mo Peña's glove for the single that scored Carlos Guillen from third with the Tigers' go-ahead run in their 3-2 victory in front of 36,179 mildly unsure fans at Fenway Park last night. Out, with Peña's relay to Kevin Youkilis just catching Monroe off first for the second out of the inning. And, finally, a win for the Tigers, which was unfortunate for the Red Sox both because they had already lost a game to Detroit in this series and because it had seemed that David Ortiz had started to provide the magic that would result in a win.

``It was a little bit of everything," manager Terry Francona said. ``I'm sure [Peña] felt the stands coming, knew he needed to catch it and get rid of it. Probably tried to do everything a little too quick and couldn't handle it.

``I mean, I knew they were going to send Guillen. From where [Peña] was, it would have probably been bang-bang. Just tried to probably do it a little too quick."

With Guillen on third base and one out, Monroe lofted a pop fly to right, where the stands meet the foul line. Peña, going full throttle toward the short fence, had the ball tick off his glove with his body in fair territory and his hands in foul. Guillen, who was going home whether Peña caught it or not (and likely would have been safe whether Peña caught it or not), scored what proved to be the winning run just before Peña caught Monroe a step off first for the second out.

``That foul up, it's my fault," Peña said. ``What can I do about that? Nothing. Come with my mind clean tomorrow, it's another day.

``I do the best I can, like always. I tried to catch that ball. As soon as I saw that ball foul, saw that little wall so close to me, I don't know how I'm going to get ready to throw. That's baseball."

The inning, in its game-deciding glory, took the focus off what had been stellar performances by both starting pitchers, each of whom gave up two earned runs in an impressive outing. While Detroit's Jeremy Bonderman was living up to his record and ERA -- and continuing to confuse anyone who remembers his 19-loss season in 2003 -- Curt Schilling was matching him nearly pitch for pitch, as the game zipped through the first six innings.