Last night, opener against the Angels, Ellsbury hit a lead off homer in the first. Then with Beckett out with the flu and stiff neck (and Varitek out with the flu, as was Manny D., Coco out, Lowell...etc) David Pauley was called up to pitch. He was knocked around for 5 runs early on. But 5-1 deficit is easy for Boston to overcome. By night's end Pedroia will have 3 doubles, Ellsbury will have 2 homers (!), and a great bunt single (of which he scores from first). Papelbon had three perfect outs on what NESN called 98-100 mph fastballs. He maybe threw 9 pitches. 8 saves for Papelbon, 15-7 record for Boston.
Some great material from the game recap:
"When Ellsbury first stepped to the plate in the eighth, he wasn't thinking bunt. But after taking the first pitch for a strike, Ellsbury noticed first baseman Casey Kotchman take a few steps back. Ellsbury then pushed a bunt past Shields, and the Angels never had a chance.
Then he went to work on distracting Shields. And with Pedroia's hard grounder rolling all the way down the line, Ellsbury went into his 270-foot sprint.
"I was thinking 'score' right as I took off," said Ellsbury. "I ran to second like I was going to score the whole way, and I saw [third-base coach] DeMarlo [Hale] wave me in, and I knew I'd be scoring from there. It feels great to help this team win and to do whatever you can to win. That's what we're here for, is to win ballgames and it's been fun so far.""
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