Has Terry Francona lost his mind? Has he not seen Eric Gagné pitch in a Red Sox uniform? Seriously, WTF was he thinking? This might be worse than when Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in too long.
Long story short, Gagné got one out in the 11th and then gave up a single and walked a batter. Javier Lopez came on and Trot Nixon delivered a single to start the onslaught as the Indians took Game 2 to tie the ALCS up at 1.
For the second night in a row, the pitcher’s duel never materialized as both Curt Schilling and Fausto Carmona both struggled didn’t make it out of the 5th inning tonight.
Schilling started out the 1st allowing a lead-off double to Grady Sizemore after he had gotten ahead of him. Asdrubal Cabrera tried to bunt Grady over but he ended up popping the bunt up to Mike Lowell in foul territory. Travis “Pronk” Hafner flew out to Manny in left just short of the Green Monster for the second out of the inning. Victor Martinez brought in Grady with the first of his three hits against Schill, this one a double to give the Erie Warriors a 1-0 lead. Schilling finished off the inning with a ground out to third by Ryan Garko.
Carmona got a little wild in the Sox half of the 1st after he struck out Dustin Pedroia. He issued free passes to both Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz. He ended up working out of it though as Manny Ramirez grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.
Big Schill settled down in the 2nd as he allowed a single to Jhonny Peralta and then got the ageless Kenny Lofton to fly out. Schilling ended the inning by inducing a 6-4-3 double play of his own off the bat of Franklin Gutierrez.
The Red Sox went in order in the bottom of the 2nd and Schilling set down the Indians in order in the top of the 3rd.
Carmona ran into a little bit of trouble in the Sox half of the 3rd as his control wasn’t there. Coco Crisp led off with a single and stole second with Julio Lugo at the plate. Lugo ended up striking out. Carmona then issued a base on balls to Pedroia. With Coco stuck on second, Youk ended up striking out as well for the second out of the inning. Big Papi lined a ball up the middle but Carmona got his glove on it and knocked it down keeping a run from scoring but loaded up the bases for the RBI machine that is Manny. Carmona’s wildness returned as he walked Manny to bring Coco to tie the game at 1. Lowell followed that up with a 2-run single bringing in Pedroia and Big Papi to give the Sox a 3-1 lead. Carmona got out of the inning after that as he got J.D. Drew to ground out to Cabrera at second.
Unfortunately for the Sox, Schilling couldn’t hold the lead in the top half of the 4th inning. He did get Hafner to fly out for the first out. Martinez and Garko followed the out up with singles. Peralta got a pitch he liked as he crushed the ball off the camera well in center field for a 3-run homer and a 4-3 Indians lead. Schilling watched it the whole way and knew it was gone. Big Schill settled down though as he got Lofton to ground out to second and got Gutierrez to strike out swinging for the final out.
The Red Sox couldn’t get anything going in the their half of the 4th as only Lugo reached base on a 2-out walk. Carmona got Pedroia to strikeout swinging for his second (Carmona’s) strikeout of the inning.
Harry Doyle’s favorite team added another run in the 5th inning. After Lowell made a nice diving grab of a Casey Blake liner, Sizemore took a Schilling offering and put it out of the park in right to give the Indians a 5-3 lead. Schilling got Cabrera to strikeout for the 2nd out but then Hafner and Martinez singled. The Martinez single chased Schilling from game after 4 2/3 innings. Manny Delcarmen came in and did his job as he got Garko to ground into a fielder’s choice.
Carmona would last only one batter in the Sox half of the 5th as Youk led off with a single. Rafael Perez came in for him to face Big Papi. Perez almost got Big Papi to hit into a double play but Papi was hustling, bum knee and all, down the line to barely beat the throw. This would prove to be huge for the local nine as Perez left a ball over the middle of the plate that Manny tattooed into the Red Sox bullpen to tie the game at 5. After getting to the dugout, Manny came out for a curtain call, tipping his hat to the cold Fenway faithful. The fans got another chance to warm themselves up a little bit as Lowell followed the Manny home run with one of his own, his off the Sports Authority sign above the Green Monster, to give the Red Sox a 6-5 lead. Lowell got a curtain call of his own and obliged the faithful with a hat tip. Drew followed the back-to-back jacks with a single to chase Perez from the game. Jensen Lewis, pitching for the second time in two nights, came in and got Varitek to ground into a 5-4-3 inning-ending double play.
Delcarmen was back out in the mound for the 6th and he struggled as well. He walked Peralta to start the inning and Peralta would end up on third as Lofton singled to right. Gutierrez tied the game up at 6 as he grounded out to Lugo who had no choice but to go to first for the sure out. The run chased Delcarmen from the game and with the “Oki Dokey” song playing, you knew who was coming in, Hideki Okajima. He came in and got Blake to strikeout. The Sox brain trust then decided to intentionally walk Sizemore. Cabrera ended up loading up the bases as he reached on an infield single. Okajima got out of the inning though as Hafner lined out to Pedroia at second base.
Lewis and Okajima both actually settled the game down a bit with their effective pitching out of the pen. Lewis worked a 1-2-3 bottom half of the 6th while Okajima did the same in the top half of the 7th. Lewis got the first two batters in the Red Sox half of the 7th and then gave way to Rafael Betancourt to face Manny. The two got into a battle as Betancourt came out on top with a 95 MPH fastball by Manny for a strikeout.
Mike Timlin came on in the 8th for the Sox. He made quick work of the Indians as he retired them in order.
Betancourt was back on the mound for the Tribe in the Sox half of the 8th. He got into a battle with Lowell, who kept fouling pitches off. Betancourt ended up winning this one as his eleventh pitch was a called strike three. He then popped up Drew to short center and got Varitek to ground so the scored remained tied heading to the 9th inning.
With “Wild Thing” playing over the PA, Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon made his run in from the Sox bullpen. He then took his warmup pitches to the Dropkick Murphy’s “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” to get the cold Fenway faithful warmed up as well. He fell behind the first batter, Sizemore, but ended up jamming him to pop it up to Lowell at third for the first out. He fell behind Cabrera as well but jammed him as well on a pop up to Pedroia for the second out. Hafner kept the inning alive as he singled up the middle. Jesse Josh Barfield came into run for Pronk and promptly stole second with Martinez at the plate. Terry Francona then gave Varitek the 4-finger signal to intentionally walk VMart to face Garko. The move paid off as Papelbon got Garko to ground into a fielder’s choice for the final out of the inning.
Instead of going to his closer in the 9th, Tribe skipper Eric Wedge decided to stay with Betancourt. He started off the inning with a strikeout of the former Indian Crisp. He then got Lugo to pop up to the shortstop Peralta. Pedroia kept the Sox hopes alive with a single. Ellsbury came in to pinch-run for Pedroia and stole second with Youk at the plate. Betancourt had another battle, this time with Youk. On the twelfth pitch of the at-bat, Youk lined one to center that was caught by Sizemore to send the game to extra innings.
Papelbon came back out for the 10th and struck out Peralta swinging to start things out. He then got Lofton to fly out to center and he got Gutierrez to pop out to Youk in foul territory for the third out.
Tom Mastny came in for Betancourt to start the 10th to face the Sox big three in Big Papi, Manny, and Lowell. Mastny had no trouble with them as Big Papi grounded out and both Manny and Lowell flied out to right.
As stated earlier, Gagné came in for the 11th and struck out Blake for the first out. Then the flood gates opened up. He gave up a single to Sizemore and a walk to Cabrera. Someone must have given Francona smelling salts as he went to the bullpen for Lopez to face the pinch-hitter Nixon. The former Dirtdog brought in Sizemore with a single moving Cabrera to third. Cabrera came around to score and Nixon went to second on a wild pitch by Lopez to put the Indians up 8-6. Jason Michaels came in to pinch-run for Nixon. The Sox decided to intentionally walk Martinez to set up the double play with Garko at the plate. Garko didn’t hit into the double play though as his single brought in Michaels for a 3-run Tribe lead. Francona then went to Jon Lester and he wasn’t much better. He gave up a run-scoring double to Peralta to put the Indians up 4. He got Lofton for the second out but then served up a meatball to Gutierrez who cranked a 3-run homer to put the Indians up 7. Blake made the third out of the inning as well as he struck out for the second time in the inning.
At this point, I received a text message from my brother in Hawaii stating that we need a miracle. My response was a big fucking miracle.
Well neither one of us got our miracle in the 11th as the Sox would string together a few hits but Joe Borowski shut the door on the Sox.
The series now shifts to Cleveland for Games 3 and 4 on Monday and Tuesday night. Game 5 will be Thursday night. Daisuke Matsuzaka will square off with Jake Westbrook in a pivotal Game 3.
Notes and musings:
The postgame show on NESN won’t be on again tonight until after the Bruins hockey game gets over. If you are interested in watching the press conferences, head over to MLB.com and launch the baseballchannel.tv from the video section. Once that is launched, look for the pressroom.tv logo. Click on that and you can watch the press conferences live. Since the game got over at 1:36 am or so, NESN was able to go live with everything for the postgame show. And yes even RemDawg was still up.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are interested in interviewing Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell for their vacant managerial position.
The 10 runs for the Red Sox on Friday were their most in a postseason game since club defeated St. Louis, 11-9 in Game 1 of the 2004 World Series.
Check out what happened before Game 1 last night on FOX25’s pregame coverage. This is just wrong. Hat tip to Richie Rich from Home Run Derby.
David Ortiz (2-2, 3 BB, HBP) and Manny Ramirez (2-2, 3 BB) combined to reach base in all 10 of their plate appearances on Friday night…It marks the 1st time ever i a postseason game that a pair teammates have both reached base in every plate appearance with at least 5 PA apiece (Source: Elias Sports Bureau).
Don Orsillo was working on the field for NESN before tonight’s game. He had been away doing the NLDS for TBS and took a few days off to unwind.
Heading into tonight’s game, Curt Schilling is 9-2 with a 1.93 ERA (25 ER/116.1 IP) in 16 career post-season starts with the Phillies, Diamondbacks, and Red Sox.
Bobby Kielty made his first career start in the postseason last night, going 1-for-2 with 2 RBI, a run scored and a walk.
Coming into tonight, Julio Lugo has a 5 game hitting streak in postseason games. Manny has an 11-game hitting streak in LCS games.
Jordan Leandre sang the National Anthem tonight. If you don’t remember him, he was the one who sang the Anthem on the Jimmy Fund Telethon Day and ran the bases when he was done singing it.
Kevin Youkilis was the first Red Sox to homer for his first career postseason hit since Todd Walker in Game One of the 2003 ALDS at Oakland.
Mike Timlin moved into 2nd all-time on the postseason appearance list for relievers as he appeared in his 21st LCS game. Next up is Mariano Rivera at 25 games.
Jim Lonborg, who won 22 games for the Sox in 1967 and the AL Cy Young, threw out tonight’s ceremonial first pitch.
Gametime temperature was 51o .
Boston will have an optional workout at Jacobs Field at 2:30 p.m.
When Mike Lowell had the two-run single in the 3rd inning, the PA played “Brass Bonanza” which was what was played after the former NHL team in Hartford, the Whalers, scored a goal.
With his infield single in the 3rd inning, Big Papi is tied with Billy Hatcher, of the 1990 Reds, with 10 consecutive plate appearances reaching base.
Kenny Lofton and David Wells have played for the most different teams in the postseason according to the Fox trivia question during the game.
Manny Ramirez set the record for bases loaded walks in the postseason with his 3rd tonight. Nobody has had more than one in the postseason ever. He also broke Bernie Williams’ record of 22 home runs in the postseason with his 23rd.
The back-to-back home runs by Manny and Lowell were just the 5th time it had happened in Red Sox postseason history.
James Taylor and his wife and two kids were spotted in the crowd during the game. I’d have to think that the annoying Dane Cook was there as well. MLB commish Bud Selig was on hand as well.
Dusty Baker will be named the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. He had spent this season working for ESPN.
