Aw, what a night! We saw a little bit of everything tonight. A charge to the mound, Jason Bay back to being Jason Bay, a long rain delay and the most important, another win for the Red Sox. 7-5 over the Detroit Tigers.

It’s not very often when you see a Red Sox player charge the mound. But, last night was an exception…let’s set the scene:

At Monday night’s game Brad Penny hit Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera with a pitch in the top of the 4th. In the bottom of the 4th, Kevin Youkilis was hit by a (most likely retailiating) pitch. Then in the eighth inning of the game, Ramon Ramirez hit Detroit’s Brandon Inge.

Then, last night, in the first inning, Junichi Tazawa hit Miguel Cabrera (2nd time this guy has been hit).Then in the bottom of the 1st inning, Detroit’s Rick Porcello threw a nasty pitch at Victor Martinez. It didn’t hit him, but it could’ve have easily been taken as a threat. Martinez took a few steps toward the mound, but did not do anything. Then, in the bottom of the 2nd inning, Youkilis was up.

The first pitch he recieved hit him in the back. Youkilis didn’t think twice. He charged the mound, threw his helmet at Porcello and attacked him. Within moments, both teams, in their entirety had stomed the pitching mound, pulling the pitcher and batter apart. Luckily, no one got hurt. Both Rick Porcello and Kevin Youkilis got thrown out of the game. Terry Francona later got thrown out of the game because of his disagreement with a play at 2nd base.
The umpires weren’t doing their jobs either night in my opinion, as last night the umpires should have been able to see the tensions and hostility going on, and until a batter actually charged the mound, they finally took action.

Putting all that action aside, let’s talk about the actual pitching and offense.

For pitching, first time starter Junichi Tazawa took the mound last night. He had a rough start as he gave up 3 runs in the first, but after he got rid of jitters, he did great. And just a note, only 1 run was an earned run, there was an error in the 1st, a throwing one by Nick Green. Tazawa pitched five quality innings, with no more runs scored after the 1st and then was replaced by another Red Sox newbie, Fernando Cabrera who got his first hold with the Red Sox. Saito and Bard both gave up no runs in their one innings pitched, but we got a little dissapointment from Papelbon, who gave up 2 runs in the ninth. He did not get the loss though. In total, only 5 runs were given up by the Red Sox. 2 were unearned. Our pitching is looking better!

The offense did great last night! We were down by three in the bottom of the 2nd, with two on and here comes Jason Bay. He’s had two home runs in the last week, and the whole stadium is cheering him on. He takes a swing and BAM! The ball soars over the left field wall. A three run homer for Jason Bay! I bet he’s feeling a lot better now. Then in the 3rd, Mike Lowell is up, taking Kevin Youkilis’ spot and he rips out a home run. The same event happens in the 5th when he hit a two-run home run. Lowell wasn’t even suppose to be in the game, yet here he is hitting 2 big home runs. We got another run in the 7th to help secure our lead. Ellsbury, Pedroia and Ortiz all got hits tonight.Ellsbury got his 52nd stolen base and Pedroia got his 15th.

Quite an interesting game, but a great one because we won. Our wild-card spot became a little bit more secure, we’re 1 1/2 games over the Rangers, the Tampa Bay Rays lost also, so we have a 3 game lead over them now. Unfortunately the Yankees won, but there’s still home we can take back the lead again.

Let’s go Red Sox!