Shoppach's big inning

Power-hitting catchers are in short supply in professional baseball, but between Kelly Shoppach and Jason Varitek, the Boston Red Sox organization is quite stacked in that position.

Shoppach showed off his power Saturday afternoon in the International League, as the Pawtucket backstop homered twice in an eight-run second inning in a 14-5 Red Sox rout in Buffalo.

The 5-foot-11, 210-pound catcher led off the second inning against Bisons starter Jeremy Guthrie with a homer to right-center field. After a Dave Berg two-run double and RBI singles from Tim Hummel and Shawn Wooten, Shoppach came up again and hit his sixth homer of the season, to right-center with two runners on against Guthrie.

From there, the Red Sox cruised to their sixth victory of the season (against nine losses), although Pawtucket starter Tim Kester missed out on an easy win in only pitching four innings. Mark Malaska followed Kester to earn his first win of the season with three scoreless innings.

The Bisons took a 4-0 lead in the first inning on a Ryan Garko RBI single and a three-run homer from Andy Abad. Abad has three homers and 13 RBIs on the season.

Berg and Wooten each had three hits for the Red Sox.

Shoppach hit 22 homers last season for the PawSox.

The game was the first of a scheduled doubleheader, however Saturday's finale was postponed because of rain. The teams will try for a doubleheader again Sunday starting at 1:05 p.m. at Dunn Tire Park.