Julio Lugo

Here are the lineups: RED SOX (44-31) Ellsbury CF Pedroia 2B Gonzalez 1B Youkilis 3B Drew RF Saltalamacchia C Reddick LF Scutaro SS Wakefield RHP (4-2, 4.26) PIRATES Tabata LF d'Arnaud 3B Jones RF McCutchen CF Walker 2B Overbay 1B Cedeno SS McKenry C Karstens RHP (4-4, 2.54) Game time: 7:05 p.m. TV/Radio: NESN / WEEI Notes: The last time Karstens faced the Red Sox was on April 28, 2007 when he was with the Yankees.

Major League Baseball and umpire Jerry Meals agree Meals made the wrong call in Atlanta's 4-3, 19-inning win over visiting Pittsburgh early yesterday morning. Meals ruled Pittsburgh catcher Mike McKenry failed to tag Atlanta's Julio Lugo in the bottom of the 19th, allowing Lugo to score the winning run. Replays showed McKenry clearly tagging Lugo before Lugo reached the plate. The Pirates filed a formal complaint hours after the longest game in team history (6 hours 39 minutes)

Alex Rodriguez hit his 350th career home run and Ruben Sierra delivered a three-run double during a six-run seventh inning that carried the Yankees to their seventh straight victory, a 10-8 verdict over the A's last night in Oakland, Calif. The win boosted New York into a first-place tie with the Red Sox in the AL East. The Yankees have made up 4 1/2 games since being swept at home by Boston. New York rallied from a 7-1 deficit and spoiled a strong offensive night by the A's, who got two home runs from Eric Chavez and one by Scott Hatteberg.

Former Red Sox shortstop Don Buddin died a week ago and nobody here noticed. He was buried in South Carolina Sunday, but there was nothing in the Boston newspapers until yesterday. Folks at Fenway didn’t get the word of Buddin’s passing until his son-in-law called them Tuesday. Buddin died in Greenville, S.C., at the age of 77 after a long battle with cancer. He last played in Boston 50 years ago, and apparently never came back after he left, but none of that takes away from his important place in Red Sox history.

Jose Guillen and Adam Kennedy homered, leading Aaron Sele and the Anaheim Angels past New York, 11-2, last night at Yankee Stadium. Casey Kotchman broke the game open with a three-run double in the eighth inning as Anaheim scored five times for an 8-2 lead. The surging Angels have won 10 of 11 and have the best record in the American League at 23-11. The Yankees lost for only the third time in 14 games. They snapped Anaheim's nine-game winning streak Tuesday night, in a game that ended at 1:23 a.m. Guillen and Kennedy connected off Javier Vazquez (3-4)

Major League Baseball and umpire Jerry Meals agree Meals made the wrong call in Atlanta's 4-3, 19-inning win over visiting Pittsburgh early yesterday morning. Meals ruled Pittsburgh catcher Mike McKenry failed to tag Atlanta's Julio Lugo in the bottom of the 19th, allowing Lugo to score the winning run. Replays showed McKenry clearly tagging Lugo before Lugo reached the plate. The Pirates filed a formal complaint hours after the longest game in team history (6 hours 39 minutes)

If you play baseball, or care about anyone who plays baseball, it is the bane of all existence. It can impact the happiness of entire households for days or even weeks at a time. And there is almost nothing you can do to change things. Other than wait. And hope for a little good luck. It is the hitting slump, the oh-fer, the streak that puts you south of the Mendoza line and on a fast track to a legitimate cry for professional help. "I had mine in 2001 and my wife still talks about it," Red Sox infielder Alex Cora said before last night's 4-1 win over the Devil Rays.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- As a recently diagnosed diabetic, Lou Piniella was advised to quit smoking. He says he's been off the butts for four months, and is this close to kicking the habit. "Once in a while when we come in after we got beat," he said, "I feel like chewing one. " The Devil Rays were supposed to be better this year. How many Chamber of Commerce breakfasts and how many Rotary luncheons and how many country club cocktail crowds heard Piniella make that pledge this winter, that this would be the year Tampa Bay did something other than finish in...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- He finished on his back, the loser of four straight starts in a season for the first time in a virtually bulletproof career. Turns out the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who have vanquished him the last two times they have faced him, including last night's forgettable 9-4 effort, are Pedro Martinez's daddy, too. "I wanted my game," Martinez said in what may have been his last regular-season start in a Red Sox uniform. "I really wanted to snap out of it. " Instead, the second-best pitcher on the team -- he made Terry Francona's announcement for him that...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- There's no clock in baseball, but there is a pitch count. That was the Red Sox' hope. Scott Kazmir, a 21-year-old lefthander, mesmerized the Sox for seven innings (one run on four hits) at Tropicana Field last night before the largest crowd (30,530) of the season, but was close to his 110-pitch limit (108, to be exact), so Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella called on his bullpen to hold a lead. But the Red Sox erased a 4-1 deficit with a run in the eighth and two in ninth.

Here are the lineups: RED SOX (44-31) Ellsbury CF Pedroia 2B Gonzalez 1B Youkilis 3B Drew RF Saltalamacchia C Reddick LF Scutaro SS Wakefield RHP (4-2, 4.26) PIRATES Tabata LF d'Arnaud 3B Jones RF McCutchen CF Walker 2B Overbay 1B Cedeno SS McKenry C Karstens RHP (4-4, 2.54) Game time: 7:05 p.m. TV/Radio: NESN / WEEI Notes: The last time Karstens faced the Red Sox was on April 28, 2007 when he was with the Yankees.

BALTIMORE — By the time the baseball dropped into the seats, just beyond the grasp of Felix Pie, it seemed the atmosphere in the ballpark had changed. There were cheers, all over the park, cheers as the suddenly-playing-for-their-season Red Sox moved into a sizable lead in the seventh inning. So much for the Orioles, playing their best ball of the season under Buck Showalter. This was a last chance for the Sox. And even though it seemed dire early, as the Orioles scored four runs off Jon Lester in the first inning and another in the second, the seventh signaled a rebirth.

Matt Holliday hopped off a train, joined his new team, and made an immediate contribution . Holliday went 4 for 5 with an RBI to back Joel Pineiro, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Phillies, 8-1, last night in Philadelphia in a matchup of division leaders. Acquired from Oakland for a package of prospects earlier in the day, Holliday had two soft hits and a stolen base to help the Cardinals build a 5-0 lead. He ripped a double in the seventh and got his second infield single in the ninth.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - In the Red Sox dugout after the fourth inning yesterday, Brad Penny found Julio Lugo. "Keep your head up," Penny told him. "It happens. " The simple play Lugo had failed to make occurred before much tension had been built in the 5-3, series-deciding Red Sox loss to the Tampa Bay Rays - before Carl Crawford had stolen all six of his bases, before Manny Delcarmen revealed his first hint of ineffectiveness this season, and before the potential tying run died on second base in the eighth inning.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - This wasn't the same as Yaz and Lonny and Boomer and the other Sons of Dick Williams back in '67, huddling around a transistor radio in the Red Sox clubhouse and waiting for Dick McAuliffe to ground into a double play in Detroit so they could win the American League pennant. But an hour after they'd won, 3-0, to complete a confounding three-game sweep of the Red Sox yesterday, despite whiffing 13 times against Josh Beckett, the Rays of Tampa Bay received word that the Orioles had lost in Chicago to the White Sox, leaving them tied with Baltimore for first place...

If you play baseball, or care about anyone who plays baseball, it is the bane of all existence. It can impact the happiness of entire households for days or even weeks at a time. And there is almost nothing you can do to change things. Other than wait. And hope for a little good luck. It is the hitting slump, the oh-fer, the streak that puts you south of the Mendoza line and on a fast track to a legitimate cry for professional help. "I had mine in 2001 and my wife still talks about it," Red Sox infielder Alex Cora said before last night's 4-1 win over the Devil...

Matt Holliday hopped off a train, joined his new team, and made an immediate contribution . Holliday went 4 for 5 with an RBI to back Joel Pineiro, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Phillies, 8-1, last night in Philadelphia in a matchup of division leaders. Acquired from Oakland for a package of prospects earlier in the day, Holliday had two soft hits and a stolen base to help the Cardinals build a 5-0 lead. He ripped a double in the seventh and got his second infield single in the ninth.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - In the Red Sox dugout after the fourth inning yesterday, Brad Penny found Julio Lugo. "Keep your head up," Penny told him. "It happens. " The simple play Lugo had failed to make occurred before much tension had been built in the 5-3, series-deciding Red Sox loss to the Tampa Bay Rays - before Carl Crawford had stolen all six of his bases, before Manny Delcarmen revealed his first hint of ineffectiveness this season, and before the potential tying run died on second base in the eighth inning.

A day after losing shortstop Julio Lugo and right fielder J.D. Drew , the Los Angeles Dodgers concentrated on trying to sign ace Jason Schmidt away from San Francisco yesterday during action at the winter meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. "We do not have a deal," Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti said, as Schmidt's agents, Alan and Randy Hendricks , were still meeting with several teams, including the World...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Too close for comfort? David Ortiz, whose ninth-inning home run (No. 44 this season) and four RBIs were still not enough to keep the Red Sox from falling a run short of beating the Tampa Bay Devil Rays last night, considered the question. The Sox have been in first place in the American League East for 62 straight days and 86 out of the last 87, every day but one since June 24. Now, after their 8-7 loss to the Devil Rays here and the Yankees' win over Baltimore in the Bronx last night, the lead is a half-game.