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Baseball Today: Friday, September 28 »
September 27, 2007
*Despite the Red Sox’ loss tonight, the biggest news was the performance of Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima.
The Japanese left-hander has not worked since Sept. 14 due to fatigue and he showed no signs of being tired in his one inning of work in the top of the eighth. The southpaw threw just 14 pitches and allowed one hit with two strikeouts.
This afternoon Red Sox manager Terry Francona stated the importance of getting Okajima into last night’s game, and the club would like to see another performance like this one at least one more time before the postseason.
“He didn’t get extended and he didn’t give up runs,” said the manager. “It didn’t look like there was a ton of rust, so if we can get him out there again, that would really be good.”
Okajima has been a huge part of the club’s bullpen for much of the season until his latest bout of exhaustion.
*Francona on Josh Beckett:
“Josh left some fastballs over the plate and he paid the price for it. We gave ourselves a really good opportunity in the ninth, but (Minnesota closer Joe) Nathan made some really good pitches when he had to.”
Beckett on his losing performance:
“If you can’t locate your fastball hitters are going to get the best of you most of the time."
Beckett on his final regular-season outing and looking ahead:
He finishes his second season with the Red Sox with a 20-7 record, including a 3.27 ERA and reached the 200-inning plateau, which he said was a goal of his this year.
Still, he’s not about to talk about individual accomplishments, because there’s a higher purpose – a World Series championship.
“We still have some things we want to do for the rest of the regular season,” said Beckett. “Obviously I’m not going to be part of the rest of the regular season, so I’ll sit there with my pom-poms. We’ll worry about [the postseason] once we find out what day we’re playing. With the whole scheduling thing it kind of has everybody wondering what the heck is going on. We’re trying to finish strong and hopefully we can win a couple of games in the next three.”
“We’re riding pretty high right now,” added Beckett. “We’re hitting the ball real well, but obviously today wasn’t a great game. We’re still hitting the ball and playing great defense. We’ve pitched well, too. You don’t plan on winning every game in a season, and besides today, we’re doing pretty well.”
**The last thing the Red Sox need right now is an injury to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.
The rookie sparkplug left the game after the fourth inning with cramping in his right calf and did not return. He went 0-for-2 to snap his eight-game hitting streak, and Francona said he didn’t know if the pitches Ellsbury fouled off his leg during his first at-bat caused the problem.
“I don’t know if it’s related,” said Francona. “I can’t imagine it helped. The (cramping) happened for a couple of innings and one inning he was late going out because it wasn’t able to loosen up. He couldn’t get it to loosen up so we had to make a move.”
Francona inserted utility outfielder Bobby Kielty into right field and moved J.D. Drew to center as a result.
Posted by Joe McDonald 
at 11:12 PM | Permalink
