BOSTON – It’s not often a manager thanks a pitcher for giving up eight runs on 13 hits in 4 2/3 innings, but that’s the word sacrificial lamb Hideki Irabu got from Joe Torre yesterday.
After the Red Sox chased Roger Clemens, Irabu was asked to absorb the remainder of the punishment.
“Before I came up here, the last thing I did was to go in and thank Hideki Irabu for sucking up some innings for us,” Torre said in the interview room. “Especially when you have Games 3, 4, and 5 where you don’t have an off day and we are going to probably need our bullpen.”