Projo Sox Blog

By Joe McDonald
Journal Sports Writer

TORONTO _ Earlier this season Francona challenged a sore Jacoby Ellsbury and explained to the rookie that some times you have to play through the pain for the good of the club.

Ellsbury has certainly heeded that advice and proved that Sunday when he slammed into the right-field wall to make a dramatic catch on the Jays' Adam Lind in the fourth inning.

After the collision with the wall, the rookie needed to be attended to by team trainers Paul Lessard and Mike Reinold and it took about 10 minutes before play resumed. The Toronto fans didn't like the long wait and began to boo Ellsbury, including every at-bat for the rest of the game.

"He's pretty banged up," said the manager. "He hit his shoulder, he hit his head and he cut his eye."

The reason it took so long to decide whether to keep Ellsbury in the game or not was due to the fact he had something in his eye and he couldn't put his contact back in.

"He's sore," said Francona. "The fact that he stayed in and played that game, and I might be a little overdramatic, but I thought he grew up a little bit today. I'm not saying he had to, but he understood physically where we were with the rest of our team and what he can do by staying in the game. I thought that was huge."

When asked about the manager's comments after the game, the rookie shrugged them off like no big deal.

"I just wanted to make the catch and I hit the wall pretty hard," said Ellsbury. "It was a big win for an extra-inning game."

 Tags  Jacoby Ellsbury Red Sox

---