» Brad Penny

Red Sox 4, Angels 5

A long, dreadful…….horrible day for David Ortiz. Ortiz finished the game going 0-7, while leaving 12 runners stranded on base. The biggest offensive contributers for the Los Angeles Angels were Jeff Mathis and Torii Hunter.

Mathis hit an RBI single in the 12th inning, Hunter had a two-run double and an RBI triple, and the Angels beat the Red Sox 5-4 on Thursday. Ortiz has gone 144 at-bats since his last home run on Sept. 22 against Cleveland’s Zach Jackson at Fenway Park. He is one at-bat from equaling his longest dry spell in the majors.

“A guy like that who’s big and strong, he’s going to knock out eight home runs in 12 days somehow and he’s going to catch up with everybody once he gets that swing down,” said Hunter, Ortiz’s teammate in Minnesota. “I’m almost 100 percent sure both those injuries have a lot to do with his homerless streak.

“When you have a wrist injury and a knee injury at the same time, it messes up your mechanics and you’re trying to figure out ways to hit while you’re hurting,” Hunter added. “So you’ve got to tweak your swing — and that’s not his swing. But he’s going to be fine. I just told him, `Just go out there and do what you do, and at the end of the season watch what you have.”

Ortiz struck out three times — once with the bases loaded in the fourth — and left the bases loaded again in the 12th against Jason Bulger (1-1) with a dribbler in front of the plate.

Juan Rivera led off the 12th with a single against Manny Delcarmen (1-1). Pinch-runner Reggie Willits advanced on Erick Aybar’s sacrifice and scored when Mathis lined a 1-1 pitch to left-center.

Pedroia had four hits in his return to the lineup after missing two games because of a groin strain. One was a two-out RBI single against reliever Scot Shields that tied it 4-all in the eighth — increasing Shields’ ERA to 7.90 in 16 appearances.Ervin Santana, one of the mainstays of the Angels’ injury-ravaged rotation, made his season debut after missing the first 32 games because of elbow pain. The right-hander, who pitched in his first All-Star game last season, allowed three runs and seven hits over five innings.Brad Penny was charged with four runs and seven hits over 6 1-3 innings.

Source: ESPN

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Brad Penny made his debut in a Red Sox uniform—the “retro roadies” as they’ve been coined—and snapped a three game losing streak. He gave up three runs on five hits through six innings and Jonathon Papelbon, despite a shaky 9th, picked up the save for a 5-4 win.

The Angels took a 2-0 lead into the 5thbefore Mike Lowell tied the game up with his first home run of the year, a 2-run shot. Mike Napoli would hit his second home run of the game in the bottom of that inning to put the Angels back in front. Penny would depart after the 6th down 3-2.

In the 7th Jason Bay would belt a 2-run homer to put the Red Sox in front and put Penny in line for the win. He would add a solo shot in the 9th to give the Sox a 2-run lead. Torii Hunter’s leadoff home run put the Angels within a run in the 9ththen the Angels would load the bases with two outs before Howard Kendrick’s ten pitch at-bat ended with a line out to Rocco Baldelli in right to end the game.