Game 23: Sox 4 O's 5

Aargh! I HATE losing to the Orioles. Sox blow it in the bottom of the 8th after scoring 4 runs in the top of the inning to tie it up. In a one run game, I know every play gets blown out of proportion, but several plays from this game were just boneheaded in hindsight:

- Ortiz out by a mile at home to end the Sox' half of the fourth inning. I don't know why he got sent in that situation: Markakis has a cannon, Crawford's .200 OBP is higher than Ortiz's chances of scoring, and you're begging for an injury sending the big guy barreling down the base paths.

- Derrek Lee "doubles" on a pop up in the fourth that left Pedroia and Ellsbury looking at each other instead of catching the ball. Beckett gets what should have been out three next before giving up back to back homers to Scott and Jones. Orioles score what should be 3 unearned runs.

- Youkilis was half way between third and home in the bottom of the 5th and still can't throw Andino out on the bunt single. Runners move up on a wild pitch Varitek should have had (more on that later) and Roberts hits a sac fly to score the O's 4th run. Beckett gets the next two outs and would have gotten through the inning if it weren't for the passed ba..., err, wild pitch.

- Varitek drops three balls (3!) in the 8th inning. One moves the runners from first and second to second and third. The second miraculously leads to Bard blocking the plate and tagging out Markakis, and the third is too late to do any more damage. With one out and a runner on third, Francona elects to pitch to Vlad Guerrero rather than put his concrete legs on first to try for the double play. Vlad promptly hits the game winning single past a drawn in infield. Note to Tito: Vlad is in "Hitting Everything" mode right now, not "Swings and Misses" mode. Everyone saw that coming.

And on top of all this, the MLB.tv/NESN feed was terrible for this game. Jerry Remy was sick today so NESN brought in Orioles announcer Rick Dempsey instead. Wow, he was TERRIBLE. I'd rather listen to air horns and sirens than his drivel. So I toy around with getting the WEEI audio feed instead or watching the MASN broadcast using the "park sounds only"audio feature (which is a great idea). But the feed keeps kicking me back an inning or two every time an inning ends. So finally I just tough it out and finish the game on NESN but the video gets extremely choppy and I feel like I'm watching a game under strobe lights.

Ugh. What a day. It can't get any worse tomorrow, right?