Beckett wins 17th in another fun one at Fenway

Sox 5, Toronto 3
WP: Beckett (17-6)
LP: Halladay (14-7)
SV: Papelbon (33)
HRs: BOS-Ellsbury (2), Youkilis (16); TOR-Stairs (19)

The energetic Ellsbury has been the ring leader of the Fenway Fun Bunch

SUMMARY
In an NL-esque pitchers duel Josh Beckett bested former Cy Young winner Roy Halladay en route to earning his major league-leading 17th victory, and Jacoby Ellsbury continued to blaze since his recall, ripping three more hits including a homer and a triple as Boston won its fourth straight game.

#1 STUNNER Ellsbury 3-3, R, 2BI
The speedy rookie continues to amaze Red Sox fans & management with his heady play and hot bat. Since his recall on Saturday Ellsbury is batting an astounding .667 (8-12) and is making it very hard for Francona to leave him out of the lineup.

PAN's FAUN Lyle Overbay 0-4, K, GIDP
The struggling first baseman had a game to forget, ending three innings when he flied out with a man on to end the fourth, grounded into a double play to end the sixth, then watched a 96-mph Papelbon fastball whiz past him for strike three to end the game.

RECAP
I might not have witnessed a no-hitter, but I did get to watch an entertaining, well-played and unusually short American League contest between two division foes.

Plus I nearly won a $50 Best Buy gift card to boot.

Not exactly history-making stuff, but pretty damn fun nonetheless.

And that's the one word I would have to use to describe the current iteration of this team, one that has morphed personalities roughly 147 times this season and has seemed to employ a different lineup for each one of them.

Fun.

The Red Sox are playing fun baseball, it's fun to watch them play baseball, and it looks like they are actually having fun out there playing baseball, not going through the motions waiting for the regular season to end or shrinking away like an anorexic starlet in the presence of a hated arch rival.

And the biggest reason for all this giddiness has to be traced to the exuberance that youngsters like Ellsbury and Buchholz have added to the clubhouse.

The unbridled enthusiasm these guys brought from Pawtucket, along with their suitcases full of talent, seems to have rubbed off on the grizzled vets on the club, turning a loose-but-professional team into a bunch of happy-go-lucky kids.

Fun.

And to think less than a week ago the one word I would equate with this team was 'miserable'.

Tonight's game promised to be entertaining from the get-go when the pitching matchups were announced and we learned that current leading Cy Young candidate Beckett would be squaring off against 2003 Cy winner Halladay in a battle of team aces.

The two did not disappoint, although neither was at his very best.

Halladay (8IP, 9H, 5ER, 2BB, 7K) was definitely the shakier of the pair, allowing at least one base runner in each of the first four innings before Boston broke through for four runs in the frame.

And wouldn't you know it was one of the Fun Bunch who brought the Faithful to their feet again.

J.D. Drew led off the inning with a five-pitch walk from Halladay, then Youk (2-4, R, BI) dropped a single into right to send Drew to third and set up Boston's first real scoring threat of the night.

After Varitek struck out on three pitches Coco tapped an offering from Halladay to second base for what looked like a potential rally-killing double play, but the fleet Crisp barely beat the relay throw to first base as Drew came home to score the first run of the game.

Then the fun really begun. (Sorry, I'll stop now)

On the very next pitch Ellsbury drove a Halladay fastball on a low arc into the Red Sox bullpen for his second major league homer and second longball in three days, and just like that a 0-0 game had become 3-0 in the span of two swings of the bats.

Boston finished the inning with back-to-back doubles by Lugo and Pedroia (2-4, BI), and flushed with a 4-0 lead and their best pitcher on the hill it looked like a potential easy win for the Sox.

Ah, I didn't say it was always fun.

Toronto climbed back into the game in a flash when Aaron Hill led of the fifth with an infield single off Beckett's foot, John McDonald walked and with two outs old friend Matt Lumpy Stairs launched a three-run bomb over the Jays bully to slice the Sox lead to 4-3.

But Beckett (8IP, 5H, 3ER, 2BB, 7K) was lights-out from then on, retiring 9 of the last 10 batters he faced with the one being erased on a double play, and he finished his night in style, striking out Alex Rios looking at a nasty yakker to end the eighth.

Youk added a big insurance run in the bottom of the inning when he blasted a solo shot high & deep to straightaway center field off a tiring Halladay, and the only question left was, with Paps & Oki presumably off limits after pitching two days in a row and Gagme on the shelf with a bruised ego, errr sore arm, which reliever would Tito call on to close out the game?

The answer was a surprising one as the intimidator himself, Papelbon, trotted out for the final inning; it was a miracle Remy didn't tumble out of the booth.

All season long Tito has used his prized closer as if he was made of bone China out of fear that Paps balky shoulder from last September would rear its unwanted mug again.

But sometimes the kid gloves approach came back to haunt him, most notably when he wouldn't use his closer in both games of a doubleheader against the Angels, resulting in one of Gagme's more infamous blown saves of his sure-to-be-brief Sox tenure.

So to see the squared cap and menacing glare of Paps enter the game was, to put it mildly, a major fucking shocker to most of the Nation.

Luckily, the All Star closer didn't make the decision look like a mistake.

Papelbon needed exactly 9 pitches to dispatch the Jays including the above-mentioned tracer to Overbay to end the game with a fist-pumping flourish, and the young & talented closer has saved the last three Boston wins without allowing a base runner.

Suddenly the resurgent Sox have won four straight without the services of Manny Ramirez and with Tim Wakefield's status in doubt due to a tricky back problem.

No worries around the Fens, though, cause the kid's have got things all under control.

Oh, yeah the Best Buy gift card part.

On the great baseball website Bugs & Cranks they have what's called an indoor four contest, where you pick a player who will hit an inside the park home run and the first player to reach the feat each month wins a $50 BB card for whomever was astute enough to pick him.

Of course I waited until the final month of the season to do so, but my obscure choice almost made a winner out of me tonight: Jacoby Ellsbury.

With guys like Coco, Jose Reyes, Carl Crawford and even Dontrelle Willis all taken already, I decided to take a darkhorse candidate, a speedy September callup who might just pull the feat.

Hey if Kevin Youkilis and Derrek Lee can do it, why not?

In the sixth inning tonight Ellsbury almost made it happen when he drove a ball deep over Alex Rios' head in right field that landed on the warning track, hit the base of the wall and then kicked right back to Rios, who quickly fired it back to the infield.

By that time Ellsbury had scampered into third with a stand up triple, and I was standing up as well, screaming for Rios to bobble the ball and/or Ellsbury to go for broke and try and make more Red Sox history while making me a little richer, entertainment wise.

Alas we had to settle for the three bagger, but at that point I didn't even care...

...because it sure was fun anyway.