STANLEY CUP FINAL: While Monday's game was a hard act to follow, the Bruins continued to assert themselves against the Canucks at home.Wednesday night's affair wasn't as high-scoring as Game 3, but the Bruins got on the board in the 1st thanks to a Rich Peverly goal at about the 12 minute mark.
Boston would then get some insurance in the 2nd with goals from Michael Ryder and Brad Marchand (Marchand's coming on a 4 on 4) less than two and a half minutes apart to make it a 3-0 game.
Rich Peverly would then put the game away late in the 3rd with his second goal of the night, making it a 4-0 game and chasing Roberto Luongo out of the net at the 3 and a half minute mark in the 3rd. Marblehead, MA native Cory Schneider would spell Luongo for the remainder of the game (aside from the final minute of regulation) and would turn aside all 9 shots he faced.
Getty Images/Boston GlobeNot surprisingly, the last couple of minutes for regulation were pretty physical including Tim Thomas giving Alex Burrows a 'love tap' in front of the Boston net.
The Bruins go on to win Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals by a final of 4-0, which evens up the series at 2 games each and essentialy making the Stanley Cup final a best of three series now.
While Tim Thomas managed to to turn aside all 38 shots faced in his shutout of the Canucks, Luongo allowed 4 goals on the 20 shots he faced, prompting rumblings of a goaltender controversy in Vancouver.
Luongo has allowed 12 goals in the last two games while the Canucks offense was only able to generate one goal throughout Games 3 and 4. While some might think that Vancouver will go with Schneider, early indications are that they'll be sticking with Luongo for Game 5 which gets under way on Friday night in Vancouver at 5PM Pacific, 8 Eastern. The game will be broadcast on NBC in the USA and CBC in Canada.
MLB: The venerable knuckleballer Tim Wakefield gave Boston five and a third innings on Wednesday night, allowing five runs on five hits while allowing three walks and striking out three batters on Wednesday night, which turned out to be good enough for the win thanks to copious run support from Sox batters.
Boston got off to the early 3-0 lead with a Big Papi 2-run homer in the top of the 1st followed up by a J.D. Drew sac-fly in the 2nd and a 3-run 4th inning before the Yankees started to rally and eat into the Red Sox lead with 3 runs in the bottom of the 5th.
Alfredo Aceves went the rest of the way for Boston, going 3 and 2/3rds innings while allowing 4 hits, an earned run, a walk and striking out four. However, Boston would get some insurance in the top of the 9th on homers by Carl Crawford and JD Drew to put the game away by a 11-6 final for Boston.
Game 3 of the series is set to take place Thursday night (weather permitting) with Josh Beckett [4-2; 2.01 ERA] going up against CC Sabathia [7-3; 2.80 ERA] at 7:05 ET with the game being televised on NESN and MLB network.
OTHER SOX NEWS: 2B Dustin Pedroia will return to Bostn on Thursday to have doctors examine his right knee. The second baseman said it had been bothering him for at least a month. Meanwhile, an MRI on SS Jed Lowrie showed no structural damage to his left shoulder, which Lowrie said had been sore since a May 29 collision with outfielder Carl Crawford.
Catcher Jarrod Salatlamacchia had been sent to the doctor's on Thursday night with flu-like symptoms, but was healthy enough to have returned to the stadium before the game was even over. Tests for appendicitis came back negative as well.
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