The Red Sox and Orioles are tied at 6-6 through three innings as each team has teed off on the other's young starter.
Kyle Weiland's first inning was actually quite impressive. The Orioles went down1-2-3 in quick fashion as Weiland picked up his first Major League strikeout on a 94 MPH fastball with excellent life. But after a Kevin Youkilis double and Josh Reddick sacrifice fly gave him a two-run lead to work with, Weiland fell apart in the second.
After recording his fourth straight out, Weiland allowed a walk to Matt Wieters, and left his next pitch--a fastball--in Derrek Lee's wheel house. Lee cleaned it out, hitting a high fly ball that found its way into the Monster seats to tie the game. Mark Reynolds followed it up with a ground-rule double into the triangle in center, and Nolan Reimold hit a sharp ground ball that Marco Scutaro was able to stop, but not record an out on.
That's when things just started to fall apart. Robert Andino hit a weak blooper over Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia's heads to make it 3-2, After J.J. Hardy grounded out, Nick Markakis picked up the second infield hit of the inning to score a fourth Orioles run, and Adam Jones rocketed an RBI single off the wall in right. The inning should have ended when Vladimir Guerrero hit an easy ground ball towards Marco Scutaro, but the shortstop inexplicably decided to make a soft flip to second even as Jones was sliding in instead of making the easy throw to first to catch the slow runner, allowing a sixth run to score before Matt Wieters flew out to deep center.
Then it was the Red Sox' turn. Marco Scutaro made up for his fielding gaffe by slamming a one-out homer into the monster seats. After Jacoby Ellsbury flew out, it was Dustin Pedroia making it a two-run game with a home run of his own, kept off of Landsdowne only by one of the billboards. Adrian Gonzalez doubled down the left to give Kevin Youkilis a baserunner, and just like that, the game was tied as the Red Sox' third baseman drilled the third long ball of the inning to dead-away center.
Kyle Weiland settled down for a scoreless third, and Mark Guthrie is in on short rest for the Orioles. But this could be--even already is a long one.