This trip might not hurt after all
They could break even with a sweep tonight
BALTIMORE - After their third straight win here over the Orioles, the Red Sox can, with a win tonight, break even on a 10-game trip that had appeared to be a disaster in the making when they lost five out of six on their first two stops, in Oakland, Calif., and Seattle.
After batting just .169 and scoring a total of 14 runs while going 1-5 (two shutout losses), the Sox took advantage of the Orioles' defensive breakdown in the 13th inning Friday night, then broke out the bats in each of the last two games, hitting six home runs over the last two days and scoring more runs in the last two games combined (15) than they did on the West Coast.
"Start with [Bartolo ] Colon," substitute manager Brad Mills said of Boston's starter, who pitched into the seventh on a day the Sox wanted to avoid using Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima, both of whom had pitched in the first two games here.
"[Dustin] Pedroia came up with some huge plays, a big double play that was unbelievable, and our hitting was right on target."
Manny Ramírez, who has homered in each of the last two games, Mike Lowell, and J.D. Drew went deep yesterday. Jacoby Ellsbury and Ramírez had three hits apiece in Boston's 16-hit attack and every player in the starting lineup had at least one hit except for Pawtucket callup Jeff Bailey, who walked three times. With David Ortiz out with a strained left wrist, Kevin Youkilis hit in Ortiz's third spot, Ramírez served as DH, and Bailey played left.
Julio Lugo broke an 0-for-11 skid with two hits, and the only Sox player still with an extended 0-fer is Coco Crisp, who entered yesterday's game as a pinch runner and wound up with one at-bat, grounding into a double play in the ninth.
Crisp is hitless in his last 23 at-bats, matching his longest slump in almost two seasons (0 for 23, June 30-July 7, 2006), and his average has plummeted in his last dozen games from .315 to .246, its lowest point since he was batting .235 April 5.
Catcher Jason Varitek was one of the Sox players who had been in an extended slide, going 0 for 18 until collecting three hits Saturday night. He blooped a single in five at-bats yesterday.
"I hit some balls well on the road for outs, including one that will be shown on 'SportsCenter' for the rest of the year," Varitek said, referring to the impossibly difficult catch Ichiro Suzuki made in Seattle last week, an over-the-shoulder basket grab just before crashing into the center-field fence.
"When I hit it," Varitek said, "I didn't think that was a catchable ball."
He's come up just short on a couple of others. "If the wall says 405, I hit it 404," he said. "If it says 410, I hit it 409. I went to a freaking institution of higher learning [Georgia Tech]. I should learn.
"I hit a ball in the gap [Saturday]. [Adam] Jones made a break for it and lays out. If he'd caught that, I might have unstrapped my stuff, gone inside, and retired."
Pedroia, who hit his fourth homer Saturday night, looked like he had another in the fourth inning yesterday, but Jones caught it at the wall. Pedroia punched the air as he made his way back to the dugout.
"The wind wasn't blowing," he said. "I looked up at the flag. I crushed that ball.
"But we had a lot of hits today."
Pedroia also made two exquisite defensive plays, making a diving backhanded stop of Jay Payton's smash in the sixth, then making a barehanded turn on a double play started by Lugo in the seventh. "I couldn't reach it with my glove, and my hand was there," Pedroia said. "Might as well use it."
May days
The Sox finished May 17-12. Only the Rangers (.286, 170) had a higher batting average and scored more runs in the month than the Sox, who hit .278 and scored 154 runs, the same as the Twins. The Sox led the league in home runs with 37, while the staff ERA of 3.66 was fourth-best.
Ortiz led Sox regulars in hitting in May with a .318 average, a big jump over the .184 he hit in the season's first month, and also led the club in home runs (8) while tying Lowell in RBIs (22), one more RBI than he had in March/April. Ortiz, Lowell, and Youkilis all hit .300 or better for the month, while Youkilis hit seven home runs and drove in 20 runs. Ramírez, despite his historic 500th home run May 31, batted just .228 with four home runs and 15 RBIs for the month. The worst position player statistically was Crisp, who batted just .209. Rookie Ellsbury, meanwhile, led the team with 21 runs - five players scored 18 or more - while his 18 stolen bases matched the most by a Sox player since Tommy Harper stole 18 in September 1973.
Ellsbury, who stole six bases - three in each game - in the first two games here with Ramon Hernandez behind the plate, was caught stealing second by Guillermo Quiroz after his leadoff single in the first on a borderline call. It was just the third time this season Ellsbury has been caught, and he stole his 27th base of the season in the fifth inning.
Pumping up
Ortiz said Colon told him Saturday he felt his velocity was coming back, and yesterday the results seemed to bear that out, as Colon was consistently in the low 90s and reached 93 and 94 miles an hour on the Camden Yards gun. "He feels he needs his velocity," Ortiz said, "because he doesn't think he can hit his spots consistently. That will give him more confidence." Colon, who walked two, struck out five, hit a batter and gave up a two-run home run to Luke Scott, said through translator Luis Alicea, the team's first-base coach, that he feels stronger. He threw 102 pitches, 63 for strikes.
Gordon Edes can be reached at edes@globe.com.
