Category: MLB (Page 388 of 448)

Red Sox 12, Indians 2
Fans in Boston have seen this song and dance before – their BoSox are starting to perfect the art of the comeback. With their 12-2 victory over Cleveland in Game 6, the Red Sox have now tied the best of seven series at 3-3.

The Red Sox bullied Indians pitching early, knocking in a combined 10 runs in the first three innings. J.D. Drew kicked off the scoring in the first inning, hitting a grand slam off Tribe starter Fausto Carmona, who only lasted two innings. Boston then added six more runs in the third inning and two more in the eighth. Jacoby Ellsbury, Julio Lugo, Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell and Manny Ramirez all contributed with RBI hits. Along with the explosion of offense, Boston also got a solid pitching performance from Curt Shilling, who went seven innings, yielding just two runs on six hits.

After failing twice to close out the series, the Indians now face elimination Sunday night in Boston. The Red Sox will throw Daisuke Matsuzaka against Cleveland’s Jake Westbrook. Matsuzaka lost to Westbrook in Game 3 of the series, a 4-2 Tribe victory.

At a press conference on Friday, Joe Torre made his first public comments about the Yankees’ one-year $5 million offer to manage in New York next season. And in short, he wasn’t happy about the whole ordeal.

“The fact that somebody is reducing your salary is just telling me they’re not satisfied with what you’re doing,” Torre said Friday at a packed news conference. “There really was no negotiation involved. I was hoping there would be, but there wasn’t.

“If somebody wants you to do a job, if it takes them two weeks to figure out, yeah, we want to do this, should do this, yeah, you’re a little suspicious,” he added. “If somebody wanted me to manage here, I would be managing here.”

“I offered a concept we may talk about,” Torre said. “I don’t want to go into Xs and Os here. More a concept that would work for both of us. It was term and how to go about it. But that was it. Money wasn’t involved in the suggestion.”

“I was very much at peace with my decision,” Torre said.

Let’s face it, the Yankees knew all along that Torre wasn’t going to accept their deal, but they tried to save face by at least offering him a contract. For better or worse, the Yankees have an image to uphold and Torre wasn’t getting the job done. This is the way they operate and therefore, why they’re either hated or respected as much as they are. Owner George Steinbrenner goes big or goes home, so the way he handled this situation with Torre shouldn’t be a surprise.

Red Sox 7, Indians 1
Facing postseason elimination, the Boston Red Sox turned to their ace, Josh Beckett, to save their season and keep their World Series aspirations alive. Beckett delivered, pitching eight strong innings, yielding just one run and striking out 11 in Boston’s 7-1 win over Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALCS. Besides giving up a solo home run to Travis Hafner in the first inning, Beckett was absolutely fantastic.

Kevin Youkilis got the Red Sox scoring started in the first inning, hitting a solo blast off C.C. Sabathia, who struggled in another postseason start, giving up 10 hits and four earned runs. Then in a bizarre situation in the third, Manny Ramirez hit an apparent home run, yet officials determined that the ball never left the park. Replays showed that the ball clearly hit the yellow stripe on the top of the wall, which signifies a home run, but Ramirez wound up with only a single and David Ortiz scored to Give Boston a 2-0 lead. The BoSox then tacked on two runs in the seventh inning and three more in the eighth, but it turned into unnecessary insurance with Beckett on the mound.

The Indians can close out the series Saturday night, but they’ll have to do it in Boston. Game time is at 8:00pm and will pit youngster Fausto Carmona vs. veteran Curt Shilling.

In a rather shocking move, longtime Yankees manager Joe Torre rejected a one-year, $5 million offer from owner George Steinbrenner to coach the team next season.

“Joe torre turned that offer down today. We respect his decision. We respect everything he has done but it is now time to move forward,” Yankees’ President Randy Levine said.

“The goal of this franchise is to win the World Series. All of us get up everyday knowing that that is the goal. Unfortunately we have not met that goal for seven years. It’s nobody’s fault. All of us are in it together. All of us are responsible,” Levine said during a conference call today.

” Joe Torre is a legendary Yankees manager,” Levine said.

Good for Joe. He made this decision because it benefited himself more than it did the Yankees. He’s served that team very well over the past two decades, so he shouldn’t have taken an offer unless it was the best decision for himself.

Who knows what he would have accepted, but he doesn’t deserve to go through the, “Will he be brought back?” nonsense again next year. Hopefully the next job he takes is one where he can just manage and not have to worry about what mood Steinbrenner is in. Or maybe the Yankees will set him up with an upper management job. Either way, he deserves the utmost respect for how well he handled that big top circus called the New York Yankees manager job.

So who becomes the next manager for the Bronx Bombers?

Indians 7, Red Sox 3
Cleveland exploded for seven runs in the fifth inning while cruising to a 7-3 win over Boston and taking a commanding 3-1 lead in the ALCS. The Indians are now one win away from facing the Colorado Rockies in the World Series.

The Tribe didn’t get their first hit until the fourth inning, but their bats awoke shortly thereafter. With two outs in the fifth inning, Casey Blake hit a solo shot to left field to give Cleveland a 1-0 lead. Asdrubal Cabrera then reached on a line drive that careened off of Boston pitcher Tim Wakefield’s glove, scoring Franklin Gutierrez from third. Victor Martinez followed with a run-scoring single and Johnny Peralta hit a three-run dinger to push Cleveland’s lead to 6-0. Blake then singled in another run before the Red Sox could get the final out.

The Red Sox showed some fight in the top of the sixth, getting back-to-back-to-back solo home runs from Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. The effort went for naught, however, as the mighty Boston lineup failed to muster any runs after that point.