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THE RAYS and A ONE WAY
TICKET TO "MANNY-WOOD" ...
2008
ALDS, GAME #3
The Angels hold off the Sox in 12 innings
October 5,
2008 ...
The Los Angeles Angels postponed Boston's clinch party with an
excruciating, 12-inning 5-4 victory in Game 3 of the Division Series.
The game was played in front of the largest Fenway crowd (39,067)
since World War II, lasted 5 hours 19 minutes, and ended at 12:48
this morning when Jered Weaver got Alex Cora to ground to third base.
The Angels
came to Fenway Park with their backs to the wall and with four runs off
playoff-untouchable Josh Beckett, matching bullpen arm for bullpen arm, as the
game headed into extra innings. That was when Erick Aybar's single to center
scored Mike Napoli with the winning run in the 12th. It left the Red Sox, still
ahead, 2 games to 1, heading into Game 4.
When Aybar's
single dropped in front of Coco Crisp, it was hardly a moment gilded in
postseason glory. For the Angels, it was another story, their season on the
brink, a lost opportunity to mash Beckett leading to a bullpen matchup as
midnight came and went. There was drama, there was a mystic moment, there was a
win, and that was all that mattered.
Beckett was
certainly not the pitcher the Sox have come to rely on in postseason play, with
a 0.92 ERA in his last five playoff starts. He managed to get through five
painful and painfully long innings, finishing his night on his 106th pitch, a 93
mile-per-hour fastball he blew past Figgins, already the author of three hits,
including a game-opening double.
Beckett left
the bases loaded twice in four innings, in the first and the fourth, with
minimal damage. He walked in a run in the first, and he allowed a mammoth
two-run home run to Napoli with two outs in the third. Napoli hit another homer,
this one reaching the first rows of the Monster seats to break a 3-3 tie in the
fifth. Not that Jacoby Ellsbury's popup single was any less effective.
The Sox got
three runs in the second on an embarrassing play by Gold Glove center field
Hunter. He stopped in short center, allowing Howie Kendrick to try for a ball
beyond his reach. The bases were cleared for the first three-RBI single in
postseason history. Not quite earth-shattering, but it got the job done. Like
Kevin Youkilis's smoked double in the fifth inning, slamming off the
center-field wall, which sent Ellsbury home with the fourth run for the Sox.
Beckett somehow outlasted Angels starter Joe Saunders, who was pulled in the
fifth after walking Jason Bay with two outs. Jose Arredondo replaced him and
struck out Mike Lowell looking to strand two, but the Sox tied it at 4-4.
The Red Sox
did not uncork more bubbly. They did not smoke cigars and spray suds over one
another. Jonathan Papelbon did not dance on the Fenway lawn for the 11 o'clock
news. |
