Papi, Sox back in swing
Boston Herald
RED SOX 6, WHITE SOX 2
CHICAGO - David Ortiz, while not quite looking like the hitter ofold, still was more than enough to virtually single-handedly helpthe Red Sox offense get even with the White Sox last night.
On a night when Daisuke Matsuzaka could toy with the White Soxlineup, Ortiz' bases-clearing double in the seventh inningestablished more than enough breathing room for the Red Sox in the 6-2 victory.
Dustin Pedroia's RBI single broke a 1-1 logjam and left the basesloaded to set the stage for Ortiz.
Jacoby Ellsbury added with a solo home run in the eighth inning,while Jim Thome countered in the ninth for Chicago.
Matsuzaka allowed only one run and four hits in his eightinnings. He walked three batters and struck out four on 106 pitches.
Ortiz added two singles in a 3-for-5 night and also scored thefirst run for the Red Sox in the sixth inning. He began the gamewith only two hits over his previous 20 at-bats spanning five gamesand had been hitting only .143 over his last nine games to drop hisaverage from .265 to .249.
Since coming off the DL for his left wrist injury, Ortiz hasbatted .273 with one home run and 10 RBI in 14 games.
The game was marred by an ugly injury to White Sox starter Jose Contreras, who ruptured his left Achilles tendon in the top of thesecond inning. On an Ellsbury ground ball to first baseman Nick Swisher, Contreras hustled over to first base to cover but pulled upa couple of steps away from the bag. He dropped the soft toss fromSwisher and fell to the ground after getting grazed by Ellsbury.Contreras looked in obvious pain as he kept grabbing at his foot andafter several minutes was aided off the field.
The White Sox gave no prognosis but generally it takes a minimumof nine months to come back from such an injury. Former Red Sox andcurrent Brewers outfielder Gabe Kapler needed nine months to returnto action from the rupture he had to his Achilles in 2005.
Contreras left the game with runners on the corners and two outs.D.J. Carrasco replaced him and got Jason Varitek, starting a game asthe No. 9 hitter for the first time since 2003, to pop out toshortstop.
Carrasco got through the next three innings with little effort,although the Red Sox wasted a promising scoring opportunity in thethird. J.D. Drew and Pedroia led off with a walk and a bloop single,respectively, but the heart of the order proved feeble.
Ortiz struck out swinging, Kevin Youkilis popped up to first baseand Mike Lowell struck out swinging, as well.
