Bosox sweep O’s at Fenway

8/3-8/5 - Fenway Park
GAME 1 - BOS 7, BAL 1
Jim Palmer vs Roger Clemens
MLB Network voted Jim Palmer "the pitcher of the 70's".  Roger Clemens voted himself the pitcher of the 80's and 90's.  The self promoting larger than life Texan punched his ballot with 7 dominating innings where he gave up just 1 unearned run on 5 hits while fanning 9.  Palmer, who is the only man to record World Series wins in 3 consecutive decades (60's-80's) did not have his good fastball and was made to pay for it.  Freddy Lynn's 3 run blast in the bottom of the second got the scoring started.  Wade Boggs' two out RBI single in the 4th made it 4-0.  A two out double by Jim Rice in the 5th made it 5-1.  Lynn,  the 1975 MVP and ROY  followed that up with a 2 run homer to make it 7-0 and put the game out of reach.  The O's would score their only run of the day on a passed ball in the 7th, which was charged to Carlton Fisk.  Sparky Lyle finished the final 2 innings without incident.  Rice would go 4 for 4 on the day.  Lynn would have himself a 5 RBI day in this one sided affair.

GAME 2 - BOS 7, BAL 0
Dave McNally vs Mel Parnell
For 4 1/2 innings the fans in Fenway were treated to a neat pitcher's duel, but in the bottom of the 5th the Red Sox found their bats.  With runners on 2nd and 3rd and 2 out Wade Boggs delivered a 2 run single to finally put some points on the board.  In the 6th, Jim Rice would hit a 3 run shot to make it 5-0.  Solo runs in the 7th and 8th mattered little as Dave McNally and his understudy Tippy Martinez were useless.  Mel Parnell would go the distance and scatter 8 hit, while fanning 3.

GAME 3 - BOS 4, BAL 3
Mike Cuellar vs Luis Tiant
The O's finally clawed their way back by the 8th inning to tie the  game no thanks to a fielding error and throwing error by Jim Rice (all on the same play).  Rice's gaffe allowed Don Buford to score from second and knot the game at 3-3.  After two straight days of being blown out the O's looked like they had a great shot to salvage the third game.  Hoyt Wilhelm was able to confound Ted Williams with his knuckler to get the first out in the 9th.  He was not as lucky against Jim Rice, who double off the green Monstah.  Fred Lynn was given an intentional pass to create a DP opportunity.  That DP would never come as "the boomer", George Scott pulled a single threw the hole to easily score Rice for a walk off 4-3 win and a series sweep.  Tom Burgmeier would get the win as a reward for his bailing out Sparky Lyle, who blew the original save.  Starters Mike Cuellar and Luis Tiant were long gone by decision time.  Bobby Doerr went 3 for 4 to move his average to .429.  Boog Powell went 2-4 to match Doerr's average.  Collectively Baltimore is hitting a combined .220, while Boston is punishing opposing hurlers at a .347 clip.