"He's the best in the game at getting into trouble and getting out of it," Coco Crisp said. "I don't know what it is. Keep on doing it, though, I guess. You've come to deal with it now. You've got to stay prepared for anything."
Such as six hits and five walks. Matsuzaka extended his run of wizardry, bringing his opponents' record with the bases loaded to an astounding 0 for 12, after getting Ramon Vazquez to strike out in that situation in the second inning. Matsuzaka also improved his record over his last nine starts to 6-1 with a 1.91 ERA.
The Rangers' pitching staff, the poor Rangers' pitching staff, was not so lucky. Instead, they were beaten and bloodied, and exiting far too early for Texas manager Ron Washington's blood pressure. Perhaps, for health reasons alone, he'll arrange to be absent when the Red Sox arrive in Arlington, Texas, for a series during the first weekend of September.
While the Rangers have arms in their bullpen that might be ready to fall off, given their workload over the last three nights, the Red Sox' bats are rejoicing after scoring 37 runs in the series. Nothing like games against abysmal pitching - 9.92 ERA in the Rangers' last six games, including 17.26 by the starters - to put your swing in order. So it was that the Sox yet again smoked their opponents, and this time they didn't give it back.
Instead of blown leads and late runs for the Rangers, which occurred in the first two games of the series, the Sox had an easy one last night. All but one run came in the second inning.
"Obviously, they gave us some pitches to hit and we did something with them," said Dave Magadan. "As a hitting coach, that's what you hope for, guys being patient enough to wait for the pitches they can drive, and then doing it. It's easier said than done."
Asked to describe the Rangers' six-game road trip, which concluded last night and in which opponents scored at least seven runs in each game, Washington said, "Pitching, pitching, pitching."
