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THE RAYS and
A ONE WAY October 13, 2008 ... Two minutes and four pitches into yesterday's game, Jon Lester had already plowed through the first three batters of the Tampa Bay order. Then came the passed ball, and the first run. Then came the blasts, and the unraveling of the third inning. It came swiftly, as the Rays went from dominated to dominant, and the Red Sox left Game 3 to the visitors from St. Petersburg, Fla., in a 9-1 car wreck at Fenway Park. Save for the bombs hit by the Rays, it was a quiet day at the park, a sedate crowd of 38,031 more in line with a Sunday day game in April than Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. And though the atmosphere was that way from the start, by the end of the third, there was cause to be subdued, and that was broken only rarely as the Rays hit four home runs. The loss left the Red Sox down, two games to one, in the series, as they lost the home-field advantage gained by winning a game over the weekend at Tropicana Field. It was due in part to a shaky Lester, who was touched in the third inning for a three-run blast by B.J. Upton over the Monster and onto the street and a follow-up solo shot by Evan Longoria. That makes seven home runs off Red Sox pitching in the last two games.
But it was not entirely Lester. There were other factors, like the strikingly silent bats of Jacoby Ellsbury and David Ortiz and Jason Varitek. Neither the leadoff man, nor the designated hitter, nor the catcher, have a hit in the ALCS. No, none of them have a hit, though they have combined for a handful of walks. But those three hitters have combined to go a startling 0 for 34 in this series. So while it was clear that Lester wasn't quite the Lester that everyone has come to expect in this postseason, the offense didn't exactly back him up. Ortiz remained silent after the game, too, when he declined to speak to the media. Part the struggles, obviously, was Matt Garza, the Tampa Bay starter whose 97-mile-per-hour fastballs left Varitek looking slow, and whose 94-mile-per-hour two-seamer left Ortiz squawking at a called third strike. Part of it, though, was also Ellsbury who hasn't gotten on base in his last 20 at-bats. Still, things were looking good early. Even after allowing a run in the second inning courtesy of a passed ball by Varitek and an RBI ground out by Dioner Navarro, the Sox had two on and one out for Varitek in their half. But he struck out looking at one of those 97-m.p.h. fastballs, and Alex Cora flied to center field. Then came the third, which nearly pushed the Sox out of it. The finishing touches came later. The crowd woke up, for a moment, on an eighth-inning play that might have woken up Varitek just as much. Second baseman Pedroia picked up a ball off the bat of Navarro, and fired immediately to Varitek at home plate, as Carl Crawford came barreling in. Crawford knocked Varitek over, the catcher's mask flying off as the left fielder steamed in, but he got the out. It only delayed the inevitable, a three-run home run from Rocco Baldelli (who brought his bat, if not his arm) and a solo shot by Carlos Pena off Paul Byrd finishing the scoring. Because of Lester's previous playoff performance and because of the uncertainty of an extremely well-rested Tim Wakefield, not to mention the inconsistencies of Daisuke Matsuzaka and Josh Beckett, Lester's starts had become seemingly assured. Not yesterday. So the games take on more pressure, the at-bats take on more pressure, the series takes on more pressure, as the Sox try to come back to win their third World Series in five years.
And so, the
Red Sox, winners of two of the last four World Series and favorites to repeat in
the fall of 2008, find themselves trailing the once-laughable Tampa Bay Rays,
two games to one, in the American League Championship Series. This was one of
those nights. It felt like the bad old days.
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