BALTIMORE - It should have been a bit confusing to Jason Bay. Not that the Pirates don't get their share of fans on the road - OK, they don't - but it should have been somewhat odd to hear the ovation from the crowd of 40,429 last night at Camden Yards when he smashed his second home run of the game.
While Bay fist-bumped with Kevin Youkilis and the rest of the Red Sox crew in the third-base dugout, there was quite the show of appreciation from the home (er, road) fans.
"To be honest with you, it didn't even occur to me at that point that we were on the road," Bay said.
Not that it was all that surprising to the rest of them, of course. The Sox are used to this. And used to beating Baltimore (13 of their last 19 meetings), which they did last night behind another ace-like performance from Jon Lester.
That, of course, is nearly a given these days. The burst of offense from Jason Varitek is another story.
Needed, though, as the Sox try to turn their 6-3 win last night into a recurring theme against the American League East (against whom they play 27 of their final 37 games). Because the Rays have shown, thus far, that they're not going away, and the White Sox and Twins are making an AL wild card far from a given.
"We've got to win games," David Ortiz said. "It's the last six weeks of the season, and we're kind of close to first place. Tampa Bay is playing some unbelievable baseball, so we've got to win games."
So while Varitek was coming up with a rare home run, it was Bay who was demonstrating yet again what kind of offensive force he can be. With an eighth-inning poke over the short wall in left-center, Bay recorded the 12th multihomer game of his career, and his two-run shot gave the Sox a 4-1 lead.
"That's a big part of my game, going up the middle, the other way," said Bay, who finished with two homers, four RBIs, and a stolen base. "I just kind of got a little pull-happy, and so we talked today, and tried to get back to staying out over the middle.
"I definitely wasn't trying to hit home runs that way, but that's usually what happens. You're not trying to, you're just trying to keep it simple, stay up the middle, and all of a sudden - boom - you catch a couple."
As to how Ortiz got on base ahead of Bay in the eighth, it was a fielding error by Kevin Millar that put him there. And Ortiz wasn't quite happy about the scoring decision.
"I thought I got a hit," Ortiz said, laughing. "Come on, man. Seriously. I almost killed that guy."
While Ortiz was joking his way through interviews, there seemed to be a bit of relief across the clubhouse at Varitek's locker. Not only did he reach twice (though he also struck out twice), but his hit was a lefthanded home run, not exactly a commonplace occurrence for the catcher.
