"Dave Page, our strength coach, said they had staff BP here, and he said he hit a home run off the foul pole, so that's one more home run than I hit when I was here," Bay said. "So, yes, I do remember.
"Abreu hit 28,000 and I was up after him. I just sat there the whole time."
So it was that he stepped to the plate at Comerica in the third inning last night against the Tigers. He had struck out in his first at-bat, but his lack of luck in the Motor City would stop right there. Bay lifted a pitch from Detroit starter Rick Porcello into the stands in left field for his 16th home run of the season, a two-run shot that broke up a tie game and pushed the Red Sox to their second straight win, this one 5-1 in front of 25,914.
It was a game notable for a runaway squirrel (on the field and in the Red Sox dugout) and for Sox pitchers being able to extricate themselves from a jam or two.
"J-Bay gets one pitch," Francona said. "He's so dangerous. They made some pitches, and all of a sudden there's a ball that's up in the zone hanging, and he just crushes it. He's been that type of hitter, but it's nice to see him do it for us."
This was not just a victory over the AL Central-leading Tigers, or a relatively rare win on the road. It was also Francona's 500th as Sox manager, making him the third to reach that milestone for the organization.
Jonathan Papelbon, however, made him wait. The closer capped the game in as tenuous a manner as his starter had begun it, loading the bases on three singles, then taking 11 pitches to strike out Josh Anderson for the first out. He struck out Jeff Larish and Ramon Santiago, both swinging, to finish off the inning and the win.
"I just really basically tried to get my fastball command back," Papelbon said. "I was kind of falling behind hitters there.
"Tonight was just a classic situation where the ball found holes. You can't really do anything about that but just keep grinding it out and keep battling and keep trying to make pitches.
"I kind of just said, 'I'm not going to let this happen.' I stepped off the rubber, kind of regrouped and refocused."
He saw that Anderson, who fouled off nine pitches, had gotten defensive. And Papelbon knew he could exploit that. After a 35-pitch inning, he was out it.
