Box Score

Summary

Boston took the first game of a day-night doubleheader with their starter Julian Tavarez pretty much stopping the Detroit offense. Zach Miner, who made the emergency start with Mike Maroth ill, pitched an excellent game as well but ultimately coming up a bit short.

Very good game to watch however disappointing that the offense couldn’t come up with some runs. There were a couple of missed opportunities but kudos to Boston pitching for capitalizing.

Detroit has one opportunity this evening to tie up the series and get back into first place in the Central.

Pitching

Zach Miner was brought up to spot start for the ill Mike Maroth and did a fantastic job. Miner did not have time to prepare, or fret, about this start at Fenway and this might have been a good thing. Zach lasted 5.1 innings allowing a single earned run with the other run coming off an error from Carlos Guillen. The defense behind Miner just didn’t live up to the task but Zach did about as good as could have been expected and beyond what I expected.

Tim Byrdak came in for the second time in relief and pitched two perfect innings getting 5 key strikeouts. He’s really starting to impress but it is hard to feel that a change is around the corner.

Jose Mesa finished the game getting two fly-outs though it took 13 pitches over the two batters.

Hitting

Offense just couldn’t get a move on today or take advantage of scoring situations. While they only had 4 hits through the game they also worked four walks and key at-bats by Granderson and Ordonez ended with them stranding runners. Both of them ended the game without reaching base.

Brandon Inge had a quietly nice game working a walk and getting a hit to help his average continue to slowly climb up. Polanco also continued to getting an RBI hit and a walk.

By the time it was the ninth inning and they were facing Papelbon the game was pretty much over as he was lights out striking out Guillen then Rodriguez ending the game getting Sean Casey to groundout.