Game 144: Rays solve Papelbon

Sox starter Diasuke Matsuzaka pitched a typical DiceK game, throwing 102 pitches in 5 innings, walking 4, strikeout 5 and allowing 3 runs. He is now 50-50 in quality starts, 13 quality, 13 non-quality, on the season. He is consistent in his inconsistency. I’ll give him that. He does get through innings with lots of base runners and seems to minimize the damage. He just throws way to many pitches and gets into too many deep counts.  Some how, his ERA is less than 3 for the season despite allowing over 200 baserunners in 151 1/3 innings.

Here’s the QS Bottom-Line:

Game 144	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
DM #18	5	8	3	3	4	5	0	102-61	2.97

The End Result:
Two walks and a hit by pitch hurt DiceK in the 3rd, when he allowed 2 runs. He passed off a 3-2 deficit to the bullpen after his 5 innings of work. Despite an 8th inning, go-ahead home run by new guy Jason Bay, the Rays battled back to shock the Sox by scoring 2 in the ninth against Jonathan Papelbon and win the game 5-4.

Red Sox Record:	85-59
Total Quality Starts:	74
Record in QS games:

Tampa starter Scott Kazmir gave his team a quality start (6 IP, 2 ER), the second in a row by a Ray pitcher at Fenway, after failing the first 6 times this season. 7 tries this year. The Rays are now 4-1 against the Sox when their starter gives them a quality start. This series is now even at 1 game each, and the Rays continue to lead the AL East, now by 1.5 games.

A Look Ahead:

Game 3- Andy Sonnestine (10 QS, 36%) v. Josh Beckett (14 QS, 54%). Advantage: Sox