Going into this road trip, I didn’t have a particularly great feeling. The homestand ended weakly, and my gut feeling was the team was lethargic. The dark storm clouds were all over the start of this road trip, both figuratively and literally on Friday night. I saw this road trip as a major possibility for disaster. We had that 1-12 road trip last year which effectively killed the season for a lot of people. We are in Boston, where we haven’t played well at all in the last few yeras, then to New York for 4, and then on to Houston before returning home again. It didn’t feel good at all.
Which is why the win last night made me feel better. Sure, it’s just one, and we could lose all the rest, but I’d much rather start the road trip with a win than a loss. You don’t often get games shortened by weather for a win, but that’s what happened. Actually, now that I think about it, I used to see this a bunch when I lived in Philly, but down in Texas, that almost never happens, it seems.
Kameron Loe started the game, and looked pretty good, if not dominant, despite his line of 5IP and 0ER on 5 hits (4K, 1BB). I did miss bits of it due to “family stuff”, but from what I saw, it was good, if not “oh my god, he’s shutting out the Sox”. But, you can’t argue with the line, it was a good performance, even if my attention wasn’t focued on it. :)
Clement on the other hand never seemed to get it going, going 5 himself, but giving up 4 runs on six hits over his five frames. Hank Blalock got a home run off CLement, but that was the only longball. Gary Matthews led the offensive charge going 2 for 4 with three RBI’s, and a triple. Rod Barajas and Phil Nevin also chimed in with a double each. We actually didn’t have a bunch of hits overall (7 in 6 innings), but they were efficient, combining for 6 runs. From what they were saying, it seems lke Saturday’s game might get wiped out by rain, too.
Also, I don’t know if you read Baseball Musings, but David over there was at the game last night, and posted his thoughts on attending the soaked Sox game here.