Burba Is Unhappy With Performance

It’s hard to imagine a pitcher thinking he had let his team down after throwing four scoreless innings and giving up only one hit, but that’s exactly how Cleveland right-hander Dave Burba felt Saturday.

Burba was forced to come out of Game 3 against the Red Sox because of tightness in his right forearm. The Indians were ahead, 1-0, when Burba left; they lost, 9-3.

“I go out with the intention of pitching nine scoreless innings to win the game, and I had to leave early,” Burba said. “These are just my personal thoughts, but I felt I let the air out of the balloon. Everybody kept telling me, ‘You battled, you did your best, we appreciate that,’ but personally I feel I let my teammates down.”

Red Sox third baseman John Valentin was experiencing similar thoughts in the top of the seventh. After homering to center field to give Boston a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the sixth, he charged Manny Ramirez’s chopper with runners on first and third and two out and fielded it cleanly.

But instead of setting his feet and throwing, Valentin continued toward first and threw on the run, as if to guide the ball to the bag. It didn’t make it. First baseman Mike Stanley couldn’t dig out Valentin’s one-hopper, and Kenny Lofton scored to pull the Indians even, 3-3.

Valentin redeemed himself in the bottom of the seventh, though, breaking the tie with a bases-loaded double.

“When you play this game, you try to be on an even keel all the time,” Valentin said. “When you’re on defense, you play defense. When you’re at the plate, you try to hit the ball hard. You try not to go through the roller coaster, thinking that when you make a mistake you have to atone for it. That’s just the way it happened tonight.”

*

Boston’s Brian Daubach struck out in all four of his division series at-bats before stepping in to face Jaret Wright with two on in the seventh inning Saturday.

Daubach swung hard and missed, and on his follow through nailed home-plate umpire Tim Welke on the side of the head with his bat. Welke was stunned for a moment but was able to continue.

“It just felt good to make contact with something,” Daubach said.

The next pitch felt even better. Daubach drilled it over the wall in center field for a three-run homer, giving the Red Sox an 8-3 lead.

“I might have been down a little bit,” Daubach said, “but today’s a big lift, for sure.”

TODAY’S PITCHERS

INDIANS’ BARTOLO COLON (18-5, 3.95 ERA)

vs.

RED SOX’S KENT MERCKER (2-0, 3.51 ERA)

Fenway Park, Boston, 4:45 p.m.

TV--Channel 11

* Update--What did the Red Sox learn from Colon when the right-hander gave up two runs and five hits and struck out 11 in Game 1 Wednesday night? “That he’s pretty nasty,” Stanley said. “He throws 99 mph with good location. If he makes mistakes, we have to capitalize on them. He didn’t make many in the first game.” Colon, however, will be pitching on three days’ rest for the first time this season. Mercker is a left-hander who was acquired from St. Louis in late August. Mercker’s start will trigger one key change in the Indian lineup--right-handed hitting Richie Sexson, who had 31 homers and 116 runs batted in this season, will replace Harold Baines at designated hitter.