Stanks 8, Sox 7
WP: Bruney (3-1)
LP: Papelbon (1-3)
SV: Rivera (27)
HRs: NYY-Giambi (14), Cano (17) .jpg)
Vinnie Chase didn't need to bring Drama to the game, there was enough to go around at chilly Fenway tonight
SUMMARY
I'm not quite sure where to begin with this latest humiliating defeat suffered at the hands of baseball's version of evil incarnate.
Boston was cruising along with a 7-2 lead heading into the eighth inning, and then the wheels didn't just fall off, the whole friggin' vehicle exploded. Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon surrendered six runs on seven consecutive Stankee hits, and in the blink of an eye a potential pennant-clinching win turned into another bloody, beyond-the-point-of-comprehension defeat at the hands of the band of palmetto bugs from the Bronx.
#1 STUNNER Judas Demon 4-6, 1R, 1BI, 2-2Bs
Once again the former Sox savior twisted his $13 million dollar knife in the hearts of his old mates & fans. As soon as the hairless rat led off the contest with a squibber that eluded Dice-K and resulted in him reaching base, I had that "here we go again" feeling. Unfortunately with these dicks that feeling is rarely wrong.
PAN's FAUN(s) Oki & Paps 1 1/3 innings, 6H, 6R, BB, 2K, 2HRs
Not in a million years would anyone believe this game would go down the way it did--with the New York hitters battering Boston's two best relievers like a relentless summer storm, pounding Oki for three extra base hits including two homers, then pouncing on Papelbon as soon as he uncustomarily entered the game with no outs in the eighth.
RECAP
Just when you think you've seen it all when it comes to these two bitter rivals, you witness something that you've never seen before.
And as has been the case for most of the second half of this season, scratch that most of the last century except for one magical year, the end result was not something Red Sox fans wanted to see.
The New York Stankees continued their torrid march to whatever it is they are striving for--redemption? recognition? respect?--by stomping on the hearts & souls of the Sox and the Nation by scoring an improbable comeback win in what turned out to be the second longest nine inning game in baseball history.
At 4 hours and 43 minutes that's what I call a slow torture.
Making matters much worse was the fact that the night which ended on such a down note started out looking like the Sox would win its first game against these assclowns since June 2nd.
Boston, playing with a lineup that included late-addition Jacoby Ellsbury in center due to a hip bruise on Coco Crisp and Bobby Kielty in left due to the continued unavailability of manny Ramirez, jumped on steady Stankees starter Andy Pettitte for a run in the second, another in the third and then hung a three spot on the lurch-like lefty in the fourth.
The first run scored of the game courtesy of Mr. Ellsbury, who is fast becoming the Brad Pitt of the Boston scene; his seeing-eye single past the second baseman plated Kevin Youkilis, who had led off the inning with a single and made it to third on a Varitek walk and Kielty groundout.
After Daisuke Matsuzaka (5.2IP, 4H, 2ER, 5BB, 7K, HBP) recorded a rare 1-2-3 inning in the top of the third, Boston scratched another run of Pettitte in the bottom of the inning, but it could have been even more.
David Ortiz (2-4, R) led off the frame with a towering double high off the Monster, and when Mike Lowell followed with a hard single up the middle, DeMarlo Hale decided to send the big fella despite his achy shoulders, balky knee and propensity to get thrown out an any base every time he attempts to take an extra one.
Centerfielder Melky Cabrera, making manager Joe Torre look like a genius for not letting chicken-armed Judas Demon occupy his old haunt for this series, threw a seed to Georgie Posada at the dish and Papi was nailed by a New York mile, one of the first signs that not all would go well for the hometown team tonight.
Borton bounced right back when Youk (2-4, R, BI) walked and then New York suffered ofrom one of their many mental and psychial gaffes when J.D. Drew slammed a ball to first that got through Giambi and trickled into shallow right, allowing Lowell to score and setting up runners at 1st and 3rd with two outs.
But Pettitte (4IP, 9H, 5R, 4ER, 2BB, 5K) got Tek to strike out swinging, and what could have been a big inning turned out to be another in a long line of missed scoring opportunitites that have plagues this club the entire second half of this season.
New York finally took advantage of Matsuzaka's wildness in the fourth when Posada led off the inning with a double over Ellsbury's head in center and Hideki Matsui, facing his countryman and former Japan League opponent, ripped a triple over Drew's head and around the rightfield corner to score Posada and get the Stanks right back in the game.
But I don't think anybody was expecting the highest scoring team in the majors to get shutout tonight.
Following that damage Dice-K walked Melky Cabrera to get himself in more trouble, but he got Cano to K and induced Cabrera to ground into a double play to escape further damage.
The Sox would take advantage of that turn of events when they scored a trio of runs on five hits in the bottom of the fourth.
Kilety began the inning with a double past ARod down the third base line, then Ellsbury, who has hit in all 12 games since his Sept. 1st callup, blooped a single into center field to set up a 1st and 3rd, no out situation for Lugo.
The error-prone SS (he made his 19th E earlier in the game) struck out swinging, but during the at bat pickoff artist Pettitte semed to have Ellsbury nailed leaning off first and when he threw over there it looked as iff Ellsbury was a dead duck.
But Ellsbury took off for second base and beat the thrown from Giambi there. And the legend continues to grow.
That play proved huge when Dustin Pedroia (1-5, R, 2BI) responded with a scorching single into centerfield which scored Kielty and Ellsbury and made the score 4-1 Boston, and when Papi and Lowell both followed with singles, the last a bounder off the mound that allowed Pedroia to score, it looked like this was going to be a celebratory night in the Fens for sure.
When New York chased Matsuzaka from the game after he loaded the bases on a double and two walks in the sixth, he was still eligible or the win as Mike Timlin could escape the bases loaded, two-out jam.
The veteran reliever got Demon to hit a hopper back up the middle that went over Timlin's head and by the time it finally landed Demon had his second infield hit of the night and New York has its second run, but when Timlin got Derek Jeter (1-6, R, BI, E) to strike out swinging to end the inning, the mood was celebratory as the Sox were just nine outs from bringing this victory home.
Boston added to the lead with a pair of runs off reliever Jose Veras in the sixth on RBI singles by Youk and Drew (2-5, BI) to pad the lead even more, but then the fact that Dice couldn't make it out of the sixth and Gagne's ineffectiveness forced Tito to use his bullpen in an unconventional way, a turn of events that would soon come back to bite Boston in the ass. Hard.
Javier Lopez and Hideki Okajima combined to work a scoreless seventh, and after Boston went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning, New York put together one of those innings that will make this game an instant entrant for the Stankeeography treatment.
The inning got off to an ominous start when Giambi blasted a solo shot off Okajima to open the frame, the first longball Oki had allowed to a lefty all season, but one batter later that total would double when Cano (-5, R, Bi) crushed an Oki offering high and deep to straightaway centerfield for back-to-back jacks that made the score 7-4 Boston.
No biggie, right?
Unforyunately, wrong.
Okajima then walked the nine hitter Cabrera to bring up Demon who promptly lashed a double to the gap in left center to set up a 1st & 3rd, no outs situation and forced Tito to do something he has rarely ever had to do before: bring Papelbon in for the six out save.
From the get-go you could sense that something was...wrong with the situation, bringing in your lights-out closer who hadn't allowed a run in his last 16 appearances and who had been coddled more than a newborn since his shoulder injury last September, and Jeter confirmed the suspicions when he blooped Paps' first pitch into right field for an RBI hit that made the score a scary 7-5.
Needless to say the mood in the Nation got considerably darker.
Things went from dark to depressing in a hurry from there as Abreu crushed a Papelbon fastball to the Wall to score both Demon and Jeter aand tied the game at seven, and before you could say "what the fuck just happened", ARod drilled a single to right to score Abreu, who had advaanced to third on another Lugo error on the relay throw the play before, and suddenly, silently the Stanks had somehow stolen the lead and the life out from under the Boston ballclub.
Other things happened from there, like Papelbon getting out of the innning, Boston getting a coule of runners on base yet leaving them helplessly starnded there as usual, but things really ended right then and there.
Once again New York had to come to Fenway late in the season and crushed the hopes of a confident Boston team, and once again they had treated a do-or-die game like a stickball contest at the local playground.
And once again with a division title at stake and pride, dignity and an ever-eroding confidence at stake the Sox caved in like Mike Vick's cousins. Some of the more ignominious standars established tonight include:
-the second longest 9-inning game in ML history, behind one of the BMII maulings from last August
-the first time Boston had blown a lead since April of 2005
-the first time New York had overcome a 5-run deficit to win on the road since May of 2004
-the first time Papelbon had allowed three consecutive hits in his career
-one of the most embarrassing, deflating, and demoralizing losses in the long and mostly miserable history of the Rivalry for Boston
And so another chapter was added to the Boston/New York tome, a weighty volume that seems to become more and more weighted to the side of Evil with every passing year.
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