Kalish Hits Grand Slam, Red Sox Top Angels 6-0

By KC Downey in Featured, Red Sox, Top Story ⋅ August 18, 2010 at 2:17am ⋅ Post a comment

The Red Sox entered Tuesday’s contest with the Angels 5.5 games behind both the Yankees and Rays for first place in the AL East and Wild Card. The Yankees and Rays, of course, both won their games. How did the Red Sox do?

The Sox countered with another dominant performance from their budding ace Clay Buchholz, who tossed seven shutout innings to lower his ERA to an AL-best 2.36. He allowed just five hits and two walks with three strikeouts to collect his 14th win of the year.

The Angels sent Jered Weaver to the hill, and much like his older brother Jeff, Jered has not fared to well in his career at Fenway Park. He carries a regular season ERA over 7.00 in his career in Boston, and he did little to reverse that trend on Tuesday. Weaver allowed six runs (all earned) over five innings, including a colossal home run to No. 9 hitter Darnell McDonald (NESN replays showed his HR ball broke a car’s windshield parked across the street at the Landsdowne Garage), and the first career grand slam of Ryan Kalish’s young career.

Felix Doubrount and Michael Bowden finished the game with a scoreless inning each of relief.

Sox Stud of the Game: Ryan Kalish

Kalish has impressed in his short time in the bigs. His grand slam on Tuesday was his second career home run, and he’s carrying a .300 average. Where would the Sox have found a player as good as Kalish at the deadline? Maybe Jayson Werth, but that likely would have cost the Red Sox Kalish, which is certainly not worth it.

Sox Dud of the Game: Dustin Pedroia

It’s really hard to pick on Pedroia, because I mean come on, he just got back from his broken foot. But, he went 0-4 and was the only Red Sox batter to not reach base.

The standing ovation for him was nice though.

Game Notes:

W: Clay Buchholz (14-5)
L: Jered Weaver (11-8)

Torii Hunter robbed Adrian Beltre of a home run by leaping in front of the bullpen for a jumping catch.
Pedroia turned a nifty double play with a tag of Hideki Matsui and a throw to first. But, he also committed an error on a throw. Hey, it’s his first game back since late June.
Mike Lowell finished 1-2 with two walks as he continues to fill in admirably for Kevin Youkilis.