Quickie Cuppa Sports Chowdah June 27-29: Lackey's Outing Give Battered Sox Ray of Hope; World Cups Runneth Over

(Matthew West/Boston Herald)

Well, what a short but no less strange journey it's been for the Red Sox this week. After losing Pedroia and Buccholz to injury in the first two games, Victor Martinez made it a hat trick on Sunday with a broken left thumb after taking one too many foul tips off the mitt. Granted Martinez may not have lasted until the 4th inning, but neither did San Francisco's back-to-back NL Cy Young Winner Tim Lincecum. 'The Freak' gave up a solo homer to Big Papi in the first that landed in McCovey Cove before giving up a sac-fly to his counterpart Jon Lester in the 2nd followed shortly by Marco Scutaro's 2-RBI single to give Boston the lead for good. Adrian Beltre would put an exclamation point on the game with a solo homer of his own off of Sergio Romo.

Lester went all 9 innings giving up 5 hits, one earned run and struck out 9 for his ninth win of the season, giving the bullpen a much needed rest after going through eight pitchers on Saturday.

After a travel day, the Sox returned to Fenway Tuesday night to take on the 3rd place Tampa Bay Rays. The two newest Bruins- Tyler Seguin and Nathaniel Horton- threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the game.

The game remained in a scoreless deadlock between John Lackey and James Shields when Shields had Cameron on 3rd, Scutaro on 3rd, Papi in the batters box and Youk on deck- all with two out in the bottom of the 5th. Shields decided to pitch to Ortiz and was rewarded with his offering winding up in the seats behind the visitors bullpen. Varitek- filling in for Martinez- had an RBI single in the bottom of the 6th, followed shortly by Nava hitting an RBI single of his own to make it 5-0 Boston. Rays 3B Evan Longoria put the visitors on the board with an RBI single in the top of the 7th.

Lackey would go on to pitch 7 innings, giving up eight hits, two walks, an earned run and striking out six on the night nd picked up the win in Boston's 8-5 victory over Tampa. Jason Varitek didn't show any signs of rust, going 1-3 with 2RBI and a walk while filling in for a DL-ed Victor Martinez. David Ortiz also went 1 for 3, with 3 RBI and two walks. 3B Adrian Beltre was 4-4 with two runs scored as well.

Tomorrow night will see Daisuke Matsuzaka (5-2; 4.50 ERA) go up against the Ray's Matt Garza (8-5; 4.10 ERA). Tuesday night's win put the Red Sox a game out of 1st place in the AL East.

[Paraguay's flag never looked so good]

WORLD CUP: well, since my one and only rooting interest in the World Cup was eliminated by Ghana over the weekend, I have very little incentive to pay attention now.

Having said that, here is a quickie roundup of the World Cup results over the last 2 days:

NETHERLANDS 2- Slovakia 1

BRAZIL 3- Chile 0

PARAGUAY 0(5)- Japan 0(3)

SPAIN 1- Portugal 0

[Yay Brazil! Wait- what? They play soccer there, too?]

So the Netherlands will take on Brazil on July 2nd while Ghana and Uruguay go head-to-head on the same day; Argentina- having defeated Mexico will take on Germany on July 3rd after the krauts sent England packing at roughly the same time Ghana bounced out Team USA and Paraguay will take on Spain later that day.

[Don't stop jumping up and down on my account- especially you on the right]

This concludes your NANESB! World Cup update.

[La Nacion]

And distraught Chileana fans such as this one (who needs to rehydrate after shedding so much tears after the 3-0 loss to the nation that will be hosting the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics) in need of consoling can reach me through this blog.