Wednesday, June 24, 2009

BoSox, Bay Blast Nats; Pineiro Grounds Out Mets

Players of the Day for Tuesday, June 23, 2009 American League The Boston Red Sox expanded their AL East lead to five games, knocking off the Nationals, 11-3, while the Yankees lost at Atlanta. Already the league leader in RBI entering Tuesday's games, Jason Bay added to his total by driving in three runs with a solo homer in the second inning and plating two more with a single in the 8th. Bay singled twice more in the game, going 4-for-6 and also scored three runs. He's now established a comfortable lead in the RBI category with 69, 8 better than Tampa's Evan Longoria. In the home run department, Bay's 19 dingers put him in third place behind Carlos Pena (22) and NY's Mark Teixeira (20). National League With a 1.13 WHIP and an ERA of 3.40, one would expect Joel Pineiro's record to be better than 6-8, but that's what it is after Pineiro induced 22 ground outs with his exceptional sinker, leading the Cardinals to a 3-0 victory over the Mets. Pineiro was in complete control throughout, allowing just 2 hits and one walk overall while fanning just one for the complete game shutout, the 5th shutout and 12th complete game of his career. He allowed just one hit over the first eight innings, a harmless single by Luis Castillo in the third inning. Castillo also walked to open the sixth, though he was caught stealing for the first out of the inning. Pineiro threw an even 100 pitches (62 strikes) to snap a string of five straight losses. Over that span, Pineiro didn't pitch all that poorly, never allowing more than 4 earned runs in any outing, but the Cardinals didn't exactly support him, scoring a total of 12 runs in the five losses.

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