Drew's career night fuels huge Sox win

Sox 10, Arizona 3
WP: Beckett (9-0)
LP: Davis (4-7)
HRs: BOS-Lugo (4), Drew, 2 (3,4); ARI-Montero (4)

The number seven was certainly lucky for Drew tonight

SUMMARY:
J.D. Drew had the game of his life, blasting two 3-run homers plus an RBI double, Josh Beckett was awesome in his second start since coming off the DL, and Julio Lugo pulled the play of the year as the Sox rolled the young & restless D-Backs.

HERO: Drew 3-5, 2B, 2HRs, 2R, 7RBI
The $14 million dollar man finally came through with a monster game; I guess it just took playing against his little brother to bring out the best in the slumping right fielder.

GOAT: D. Davis 4IP, 6H, 5ER, 5BBs, 2Ks, 2HRs
The journeyman had been on a hot streak coming in, but the Sox batters cooled him off quick. The fact that he couldn't throw strikes from the start was bad enough for Arizona, but when he did find the plate the Boston hitters torched his belt-high meatballs for blistering hits.

RECAP:
So this is why the Sox invested $70 million in J.D. Drew; here I thought they had merely acquired the world's foremost authority on grounding out to the right side of the infield.

Drew had the game of his life while in the midst of a horrific slump, smacking a career-high two homers and seven ribbies in the first game he's ever played against his younger brother, Arizona rookie shortstop Stephen. He has always hit the D-Backs well going back to his days with Atlanta, but even this kind of night was totally unexpected with the way he had been scuffling.

Boston grabbed an early lead in the first thanks to Julio Lugo's 4th homer of the season and with Josh Beckett mowing down 'Zona batters with a fastball that topped 101 mph and a knee-buckling curve, Drew went to work on supplying him with his league-leading 8.5 runs of support per game.

Who knew he would nearly knock in that total himself?

After Lugo walked to open the third, Pedroia and Papi hit sharp outs before Manny lined a single to center. Drew then took an 84-mph flutterball from Doug Davis and deposited it over the wall in right center about 415 ft. away give Boston a 4-0 lead.

He whiffed on a Davis curve in the dirt his next time up, but in the sixth, after Papi had just doubled in Pedroia with run #6, Drew did something no one who had been following this team all season would have ever expected him to do- hit another three-run homer to effectively put the game out of reach.

This time it was a titanic shot to right off Arizona reliever Edgar Gonzalez (4IP, 6H, 5ER, 5K) that turned a five-run game into a 9-1 rout, and just when you though his night couldn't get any sweeter, he laced a double to right in the 8th that plated Boston's 10th and final run of the game and put a bow around Drew's present to Red Sox Nation.

As Drew was filling his highlight reel, Beckett (8IP, 5H, 2ER, 0BB, 8Ks) was nearly as dominant as Schill was the day before, and his dazzling display of command and velocity put to rest any thoughts of him being hampered by that blister problem-at least temporarily.

One at bat in particular summarizes Beckett's night; after a 1-2-3 first, he quickly got two outs in the second when left fielder Scott Hairston stepped to the plate. Strike one was a 101-mph laser that nearly blew the ump's cap off; strike two was a filthy 76- mph breaker that froze Hairston in place, and after a ball Beckett broke him off with a 96- mph heater that left him muttering under his breath all the way till the timeout.

It was that kind of night for Arizona, a team that had been red-hot coming into the series but played like a bunch of over-matched, overwhelmed little leaguers at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths.

Nothing signified the level of their futility more than the rare play turned in by Julio Lugo in the third inning. After the immortal Alberto Callaspo singled to right to open the frame, he advanced to second on a single to right by Chris Snyder, and almost got himself picked off over-running the bag.

But as he got up to dust himself off after the close play, Lugo waited behind him like a cheetah tracking a zebra, and as soon as Callaspo removed his hand from the base, Lugo tagged him out on a modern version of the hidden ball trick that left the D-Backs stunned and signified the kind of wild night it would be in the Arizona desert.

So after a 4-game losing streak the Sox have won two in a row in dramatic fashion, on a near no-hitter and an this one an offensive explosion. And the string of wacky, weird, and rare plays continues to swirl around this team like a cosmic cloud of championship karma.

'Cause when J.D. Drew is matching his uniform number in RBIs, there's a whole lot of freaky shit going down.

NOTES:

• A few eye-popping numbers to put Drew's night into perspective: he tied his season total for homers, and hit his first longball since April 22nd against New York; he had almost as many ribbies tonight as he had in the entire month of May (9-6); and he had as many hits tonight as in his last 20 at bats, spanning seven games. Oh, and it was his first three-hit game since April 20th and only his second of the season.
• Boston rapped 12 hits including two doubles and three homers.
• Manny's solid night (2-3, 2R RBI) pushed his average to a season high .293 and he now has 33 ribbies, one less than Lugo
• Speaking of Lugo (1-4, 2R, RBI, BB), it was his second leadoff homer of the season and seventh of his career. Still, he's batting just .217!
• Papi played first while Youk sat this one out, and he handled himself adequately, as usual, plus he hasd two hits and scored a run; he's now up to a sizzling .337
• Beckett's streak is the 5th best in Sox history, but he's got a ways to go to catch Roger's record of 14 wins without a loss
• Arizona's Eric Byrnes extended his hitting streak to 14 games with an RBI single in the third
• Red Sox Nation was in full effect in Boston's first trip to the desert; it seemed like about half the 28,000+ appeared to be cheering for the Sox, sorta like a Rays game

QUOTES:

"I think there's always going to be that sibling rivalry going on. He does well, I want to do better. "--Drew about Stephen; ah, good luck matching this performance, lil bro!

"I'm on a great team. I can't take all the credit for being 9-0. These guys have done an unbelievable job behind me."--Beckett, taking the championship line that it's all about the team

RECORD: 39-21
STREAK: W-2
LAST 10: 4-6
AL EAST: Up 10.5
UP NEXT: Sat @ ARI 9:30