The Los Angeles Angels took a 5-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox Tuesday night in Fenway Park, with Boston coming up the lesser of the two struggling teams that once numbered amongst the best in the game.
The game would start in surprisingly good fashion for Aaron Cook, who struck out Mike Trout of all people on just four pitches to get the game off on the right foot. While Albert Pujols would also pick up a double in the first, scraping a ball of the left field wall, Cook seemed to be right as rain, inducing ground ball after ground ball.
The trouble with ground ball pitchers is that, even when they're on, they can be the victims of bad defense or bad luck. It was perhaps a little bit of each for Cook in the third and fourth innings. More ground balls came, sure enough, but they would get through into the outfield, skipping past a relatively immobile infield, particularly the left side. Ground balls would cost Cook one in the third, and then two in the first.
Those runs would be good for a 3-0 deficit, too, as the Red Sox were doing nothing against Ervin Santana, the man with a 5.59 ERA. Though the Sox were patient, seemingly waiting for the one pitch they wanted, when they got the ones they decided to swing at, they did nothing with them. Cody Ross had a second-inning double, and a couple of singles gave them a scoring opportunity in the fourth, but they could push nothing across early.
The Angels would end Cook's night on a bad note in the fifth, as a meatball to Mark Trumbo was launched well over the Volvo sign over the Monster. Despite striking out a season-high four batters, Cook was left with a very unimpressive five runs in five innings.
The Sox would finally break through against Santana in the sixth when Jarrod Saltalamacchia stayed with a high fastball and sent it just barely into the stands in right for a two-run shot. Scott Podsednik would double and score in the next inning to make it 5-3, but with the Sox unable to push any more runs across, the Angels took the opening game of the series.
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