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Saturday, April 11, 2009

Bay blasts 2 in Red Sox win.

Mark it down: the Red Sox now have two wins on the season.

After a couple of bombs by Jason Bay and six solid innings from starter Brad Penny, the Red Sox took home the 5-4 victory over the Angels on Saturday.

Bay hit his bombs in the 7th and 9th innings while Mike Lowell, slotted right behind him in the lineup, hit his first home run of the season in the fifth inning. While the Angels made it close (bases loaded in the 9th), Jonathan Papelbon closed out the game with a very long at-bat against Howie Kendrick.

The bottom of the order was really where the Sox won today's game. Rocco Baldelli went 2 for 4 and Jason Varitek went 2 for 3 on his 37th Birthday.. The one through four hitters went a combined 1 for 15 with a walk (Kevin Youkilis). Jacoby Ellsbury led off the game with a hit.

But hey, let's not forget that Penny wasn't bad. He helped the bullpen a bit by going six innings and allowing five hits, three runs, two walks and struck out two. He did give up two home runs to Mike Napoli, though.

Ramon Ramierez was the gap between Penny and Papelbon. Ramirez has been spectacular so far this season as he added 1.2 innings of work to his season total. He gave up just one hit and one walk.

While the Sox won this game, they also got very lucky. The top of the order has to start producing if they want to consistently win games. Penny was better than I think some would have thought, but if he was any worse this game would have been the Angels'. Papelbon got touched up quite a bit, too, which is not a good sign.

It's a win though so let's be happy with it. The rubber game is Sunday, with Josh Beckett taking on Dustin Mosley at 3:35 p.m. EST.

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