Well, I suppose we can’t win every single game, but I really wanted this one because we’d have gained a game on the Yankees and that would have been fantastic. I keep picturing this team surging in September and overtaking them, and to do that you kind of need to win baseball games like this one.

Buchholz was pretty darn solid tonight, though. He started off iffy, giving up a home run to Mark Reynolds, noted Red Sox killer, but he settled in and that’s probably a pretty good part of why we lost. The bit where Luis Ayala gave up three runs is part of that, too, of course. Tillman did give up three runs of his own, as well, but that’s better than I often expect from the kid, at least. The game was tied for a while, but Ayala pretty much decided that was stupid and had a bad inning.

Need to cheer up since we didn’t gain a game on the Yankees like we were all hoping to tonight? Here you go:

GANGNAM STYLE! It’ll never fail to cheer you up, believe me.

It honestly seemed like nobody wanted to win this game at one point. C’mon, guys, it’s Christmas*!

Here’s the basic gist on this one – the Red Sox and the Orioles both struggled significantly. Clay Buchholz walked in two runs and allowed a bunch more. Tommy Hunter balked in a run at one point. It wasn’t until the Red Sox pulled out for good later in the game that it seemed like somebody was definitely going to win.

This was clearly an offensive-minded game on both sides. I mean, look at this from the Sox point of view:

That’s a team effort – eight of the nine starters came across the plate once. The Orioles scored most of their runs in a similar fashion, clustering their small infield hits and being patient enough to let Buchholz walk them. Unfortunately, the other team scored two more runs tonight. Sometimes, that just happens.

To be fair, the Red Sox have been on a roll lately, but the Orioles should have scored in certain places that they didn’t. At one point, they had men on in the eighth, but only the birthday boy (Weets) was able to come through and drive in a run. Nobody behind him did anything effective, and the score remained 8-6.

Just two more games to go before we get an off-day. I think we sorely need an off-day. Kevin Gregg had to pitch tonight, after all. (Incidentally, that is part of why we lost tonight. What a shocker.)

*Matt Wieters was born today.