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SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
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Reuters
BOSTON - Johnny Damon stepped to the plate to lead off the game and was booed for 30 seconds by the crowd at Fenway Park.
Somewhere in there, though, were just enough cheers to make him raise his new Yankees helmet.
“I planned on doing it if I heard enough cheering, and I did,” Damon said.
But the Red Sox fans saved their loudest cheers for David Ortiz, who hit a three-run homer into a strong wind, giving the Red Sox a 7-3 win over the New York Yankees on Monday night and spoiling Damon’s return to Boston.
Damon was booed in each of his other three at-bats and went 0-for-4.
“You know they’re booing a uniform now,” he said. “They don’t boo bad players. They boo good players.”
Damon could only stand and watch from a few feet away as Ortiz’s 11th homer of the season sailed into Boston’s bullpen in right-center field in the eighth.
Mark Loretta, in a 1-for-17 slump, had broken a 3-3 tie with an RBI single earlier in the inning in his first game as part of baseball’s biggest rivalry. The first series of the season between the teams wraps up Tuesday night.
“What an atmosphere,” said Loretta, traded from San Diego in the offseason. “Every game at Fenway Park has been electric, but tonight was extra electric and (there was) a great buzz out there.”
That usually happens when the teams face each other. Throw in Damon’s return after four years as a fan favorite — before he left as a free agent — and the crowd was excited even before the first pitch.
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Fans even taunted Damon, chanting “Johnny! Johnny!” after Ortiz’s homer.
Damon couldn’t do much with the previous batter either. He could only trot in to pick up Loretta’s single through the middle off Tanyon Sturtze.
Mike Timlin (3-0) got the win with help from Jonathan Papelbon, who retired the side in order in the ninth with two strikeouts and is unscored upon in 15 1-3 innings this season. Aaron Small (0-1) took the loss after going 10-0 for the Yankees last season.
It was a bad night for another former Red Sox player. Mike Myers, Boston’s lefty specialist last year, entered the game after the single by Loretta and gave up Ortiz’s drive on a full count.
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“You had to hit it good with the wind blowing like 100 miles an hour,” Ortiz said.
Manager Joe Torre marveled at Ortiz’s power.
“If anybody is going to do it, Big Papi is going to find his way through the wind,” Torre said. “I just thought the count was probably the difference. He had to throw a strike.”
Another returning player who had a more pleasant night was Boston catcher Doug Mirabelli, reacquired earlier Monday from San Diego where he had been traded for Loretta last December. Boston obtained him to resume his role as knuckleballer Tim Wakefield’s personal catcher after Josh Bard, who went to the Padres, had 10 passed balls in Wakefield’s four previous starts.
Mirabelli arrived at Fenway 13 minutes before the game and went 0-for-4 but didn’t have a passed ball and threw out a runner trying to steal.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
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