Carl Everett still doesn't talk to the media. His bat did all the talking tonight.
Everett swatted two long homers of Texas starter Ryan Glynn to power the Sox to a 7-3 win over the Texas Rangers. The five runs he singlehandledly drove in eclipsed the run production of any Sox lineup since last Saturday.
The new-found offense backed the first Sox win for starter Rolando "Viejo" Arrojo, who toiled through seven innings, allowing two runs, and somehow shut down the Ranger offense despite not striking out a single batter.
At first, it seemed as if the mercurial Sox offense would continue its impassive ways. In the second inning, Brian Daubach fouled out to Texas big bopper Rafael Palmeiro with Nomar Garciaparra dancing off third. However, once Ryan Glynn went through the Sox lineup once, it was a race between the Texas heat and the Sox bats, as far as getting to him first.
The Sox bats won the race. The first three batters in the fourth inning scored, as Scott Hatteberg's walk preceeded Everett's first blast. Nomar would single and later score on Brian Daubach's double play grounder. The fifth inning was more of the same, as the Sox capitalized on Royce Clayton's error, and plated a run off an RBI single by Trot Nixon, and yet another missile from Everett's bat, this one a three-run homer. Glynn was removed from the game two batters later, and later lost consciousness in the dugout from heat exhaustion.
On that note, maybe Viejo's Cuban background was instrumental in handling pitching in heat. Viejo threw 102 pitches in 7 innings, and did his best to keep the ball down, inducing thirteen ground-ball outs. Rheal Cormier and Rod Beck did their best to make the game interesting, but Derek Lowe performed a non-save in the ninth, relieving Beck with one on and no outs in the ninth and closing out the game.
The Sox win, coupled with the Yankees' loss to the west in Anaheim, brought the Sox to within four games of the Evil Empire. A loss for El Duque, a smile for El Duquette. Losses by Cleveland, Toronto, and Oakland also helped the Sox cause, as the Sox are only 1 1/2 games behind the A's in the wild card. It was a positive night for the Sox. This team needed one in the worst way.