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Red Sox Find Power Stroke with Back-to-Back Victories

April 15, 2012

The rumors of their demise were premature.  The season is young, but Sox fans were already panicking about the lack of offense.  As Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe points out, the Sox scored 22 runs in their first six games total, and now ahve scored 25 runs in their last two.  That's quite a difference.  Ironically, the scoring came after last year's star, Jacoby Ellsbury, left the game with what appears to be a dislocated shoulder after Rays SS Reid Brignac fell awkwardly onto him.

The team rebounded and won the first game against the Rays 12-2.  Their lineup produced hits throughout, with defensive catcher Kelly Shoppach going 3-5 and, whoa nelly, stealing a base.  Yup, you heard that right.  Bobby Valentine is letting 'em rip, with David Ortiz trying to steal a base early this season, and now the stocky Shoppach successfully doing so, although not without comedy.  As if surprised by his own decision to run, Shoppach performed what looked to be a delayed steal, but he also slid too early.  He stopped a few feet from the bag, but managed to get up and sort of fall forward onto it, ending up safe.  The Rays catcher was so shocked that Shoppach would run that he waited ages to make a throw.  You gotta love it.

This was a game of well-placed singles, with Gonzalez and Ortiz beating the shifts and the whole lineup playing solid ball behind Josh Beckett's impressive 8 innings, 1 run performance.

This was followed up by another smacking, a 13-5 win over the Rays in which five players hit home runs.  If the day before was a win of singles, this was all power.  

It's early days to speak of trends or runs of victories, but this is a positive direction, and one the Sox badly needed for an injection of confidence.

Game on.

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