August 29, 2007
...
Josh Beckett faced Roger Clemens for the first time, and while
Beckett showed as much heart as heat, keeping the Red Sox in the game
despite allowing a career-high 13 hits, he was no match for his
45-year-old idol, who held the Sox hitless for five innings in a 4-3
Yankee win.
It was not
high noon at Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees were seeking to cut another game
off the Sox' American League East lead, which was seven games with 30 to play.
For Soxologists of a certain bent (masochists?), it is a matter of note that in
1978, the Sox also led by seven with 30 to go, and in the span of 10 days, the
lead had vanished. These games have been far more competitive than those
wipeouts. The Sox had the tying runs on base in the ninth inning of Tuesday
night's 5-3 loss, and tonight Kevin Youkilis' two-run home run off Kyle
Farnsworth in the eighth pulled them within one. When Farnsworth walked the next
batter, Jason Varitek, Yankees manager Joe Torre called on Mariano Rivera to
deliver a four-out save. He didn't disappoint.
There was
not an inning in which Beckett did not allow a hit in his 6 2/3 innings. The
Yankees bunched four of them together, all singles, in the second, when they
scored three times to take a 3-0 lead, Melky Cabrera singling home the first run
and Johnny Damon singling home two more.
But try as
they might, the Yankees could not crack Beckett. He gave up a triple to Hideki
Matsui in the third, but struck out Jorge Posada and Jason Giambi to leave him
at third. The Yankees loaded the bases in the sixth on three singles, but
Beckett retired Damon on a roller to first, just beating Damon in a footrace to
the bag. The last Yankee hit loomed as the difference-maker: Alex Rodriguez, who
had been cut down after taking too wide a turn following his third-inning
single, hit his 44th home run of the season with two out in the seventh to give
the Yankees a 4-1 lead. The Sox tried to battle back without Manny Ramirez,
sidelined by back trouble.
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JOSH BECKETT |
Clemens had
not faced the Sox since 2003, when Beckett and everyone else at the World Series
that year thought the Rocket was calling it a career. The night sky in Miami was
lit up by the flashbulbs of amateur historians hoping to commit their final look
at the Rocket to posterity. Clemens won Game 3 of the 2003 American League
Championship Series against the Sox, the day of the Don Zimmer takedown by Pedro
Martinez, but stood to be the loser in Game 7, giving up home runs to Trot Nixon
and Kevin Millar and leaving in the fourth with the Yankees trailing, 4-0. The
Sox also roughed him up in the regular season, scoring 26 earned runs in 27
innings.
But at age
45, Clemens served the Sox some vintage Rocket. He hit Dustin Pedroia, the
second batter of the game, an unacknowledged response to Daisuke Matsuzaka
drilling Alex Rordiguez the night before. He walked four batters in the first
five innings, but when he returned to the dugout after the fifth, he had yet to
yield a hit.
The Sox
finally broke through with one out in the sixth, when David Ortiz hit a 1-and-0
pitch into the upper deck in right field, first base umpire Angel Hernandez
going low into a crouch for a better vantage point before signaling the ball was
fair. After Mike Lowell rolled out to second, the ball deflecting off Clemens's
glove to Robinson Cano, Clemens walked Kevin Youkilis and faced J.D. Drew, who
sharply grounded a single through the right side on a 3-and-1 pitch. But with
Clemens clearly down to his last batter, he retired Jason Varitek on a roller to
second, leaving to a huge ovation from a crowd of 54,986 that included Sir Paul
McCartney in the front row.
Red Sox left
fielder Manny Ramirez, who did not play tonight and probably won't be in the
lineup for the conclusion of this three-game series with the Yankees, has had
back problems off and on for six weeks, according to manager Terry Francona. Red
Sox internist Lawrence Ronan examined Ramirez yesterday, and the team later
announced Ramirez had a strained left oblique (side) muscle, which he aggravated
with a swing during his last at-bat Monday.
Jon Lester,
who started Monday in Portland for the Double A Sea Dogs, will return to the
Boston rotation and start Sunday afternoon against the Orioles at Fenway Park.
