TOO MANY INJURIES TO STAY COMPETITIVE ...
The Sox come back with a great win in New York

May 18, 2010 ... With the Yankees rushing to a second straight five-run lead behind CC Sabathia, the Sox showed a bit of resiliency. Yes, they came back, winning, 7-6. For the second straight night, the Sox roared back to take the lead in the late innings. But unlike Monday night, they were able to hold onto that lead pushing themselves up to .500 with a a split of the two-game series in the Bronx.

They escaped, as Jonathan Papelbon stranded the tying run on third and the winning run on second, striking out Randy Winn to end the game. It was four hours and nine minutes after it had started, and the Sox took a breath and kept themselves from falling to 10 back in the loss column in the division.

The Yankees' Marcus Thames went from Monday night's hero to tonight's goat, allowing a ball off the bat of Marco Scutaro to slip through his arms on an ill-advised attempted basket catch in right field in the ninth. That put men on first and second, and they moved up on a groundout. Up came Jeremy Hermida, in for J.D. Drew, who had felt an issue with his right hamstring. And it was Hermida, yet again with two outs, doubling over the head of Winn to score the tie-breaking runs off Mariano Rivera, making it 7-5.

Though the Yankees entered the eighth inning up by four, the Sox got four in the frame, starting with an error on Rodriguez. Three straight hits off Joba Chamberlain followed, a single by Dustin Pedroia, an RBI double by Drew, and a two-RBI single by Kevin Youkilis. But the Sox still trailed by one as David Ortiz stepped to the plate. He lofted a ball to right-center that hit off the wall, which Brett Gardner grabbed and threw to second to catch Ortiz, who was slow out of the box admiring a ball he thought was a home run. But the single scored Youkilis with the tying run.

There was little else that happened quickly. After the teams endured a 59-minute rain delay, and conditions that could charitably be called miserable, there was Beckett walking off the mound with an apparent injury in the fifth. The exit was, in some ways, the last thing the team needed, the last thing fans wanted to see. Not that Beckett has exactly been himself this season, the leader and ace the Sox signed to a four-year, $68 million contract extension earlier this year.

He gave up five runs over 4 2/3 innings. Then he was gone, his back having tightened up as he threw a splitter to Rodriguez. It wasn't something that was getting tight throughout the game. It was that one pitch, and then it got tighter and tighter for the next six or seven pitches. That led to the protest.

Beckett had missed his last start, which had been scheduled for Friday in Detroit, after he suffered back spasms while taking batting practice in preparation for interleague play. And the Sox had already pushed him back in the rotation before that, to give him an extra side session to try to work out some issues. It's clear they haven't been solved.

Over his last five starts, consuming nearly a month of the season, Beckett has allowed at least five runs in each, with the exception a seven-inning, two-run effort against the Orioles. Though last night, the five runs allowed weren't entirely his fault, with two of them unearned, a fact that lowered his ERA to 7.29 from 7.46.

After a clean first inning, Beckett was victimized by an error by shortstop Scutaro that allowed Robinson Cano to reach and move Rodriguez to second. The pitcher then loaded the bases with a walk to Thames, bringing up Juan Miranda. The rookie singled to right, bringing in the first run. That was followed by an RBI groundout by Winn to put the Yankees up, 2-0.

It was Miranda again in the fourth, as his home run dropped into the Yankees bullpen for their third run. Two more came in the fifth, both on the double by Cano that signaled the end of the line for Beckett. It was after that last pitch to Cano that Beckett was injured - or, in the minds of the Yankees, not injured.

The Sox were down. But, unlike in so many games this season, not out.