‘07-Bosox take 2 of 3 from ‘73 A’s

9/10-9/11 - Oakland Coliseum
GAME 1 - '07-Red Sox 5, '73-A's 2
Oakland broke a scoreless tie by posting solo runs in the 4th and 5th innings off of Red Sox starter Curt Schilling.  With 2 out in the 4th Gene Tenace singled home Joe Rudi, who led off the inning with a double.  In the 5th Bert Campaneris singled home Angel Mangual with 2 out as well.  Unfortunately for Oakland starter Jim "Catfish" Hunter that we be all the scoring he A's would do.  Even more unfortunate would be the 5 spot the Bosox posted in the top of the 6th when Mike Lowell hit a huge 3 run homer.  Schilling kept the A's hitters off stride the rest of the way to go the distance and increase his record to 4-1 with a 3.32 era.  Hunter, who took the loss, saw his record drop to 3-3 with a 2.38 ERA.

GAME 2 - A's 2, Red Sox 0
Oakland again scored only 2 runs, but that was enough as Ken Holtzman (4-2, 3.02) shut down the Sahx by scattering 7 hits in 7 shutout innings.  Rollie Fingers came on board to notch his 6th save of the season with 2 perfect innings of relief.  Oakland scored a solo run in the bottom of the second when Pat "don't call me Ray" Bourque lifted a warning track shot that allowed Sal Bando to score.  In the 3rd Billy North led off the inning by bunting his way on.  The fleet footed centerfielder stole both 2nd and scored easily on a Reggie Jackson double.  Dice-K Matsuzaka (3-1, 1.38) was the hard luck loser after allowing only 2 runs and fanning 8 over 7 innings of work.

9/12- Fenway Park
GAME 3 - Red Sox 3, A's 2
The pattern has become obvious.  The A's will score 2 runs per game.  It's up to the starters to make sure that it holds up.  Right from the get-go it was apparent that Vida Blue could not follow the plan.  The hard throwing 1971 AL Cy Young award winner yielded 3 runs in the first until he finally settled down to post goose eggs the rest of the way.  Boston posted 4 consecutive singles to open the home half of the 1st and never looked back.  RBI's by Mike Lowell, Big Papi and Jason Varitek were all that Josh Beckett (2-3, 3.54) would need.  A Joe Rudi solo homer in the 6th cut the lead to 3-1, which is how it stood until thing got interesting in the top of the 9th.  Bosox manager Eric Stouber decided to give All-Star closer Jonathon Papelbon the night off.  His elected replacement was Kyle Snyder, who served up a lead off double to Rudi that narrowly missed being his second homer of the day.  After Reggie grounded out to third Sal Bando walked to up runners on the corners.  Snyder struck out Gene Tenace in a classic 10 pitch at bat, where Tenace fouled off pitch after pitch before looking at a  borderline called strike 3.  Derron Johnson walked to load the bases and Dick Green followed by lining a single to left center.  Rudi scored easily, but Bando would not have the same fate.  Manny Ramirez, shockingly was on his horse, en route to cutting the ball off before it got to the wall.  The sluggish fielding slugger then turned and made the throw of his life, which just nailed Bando on a bang/bang play to end the game on what could have been the tying run if the call went the other way.