Jennings v. Lester (Game 19)

First, how cool was it to have Lance Armstrong throw out the first pitch? He may not be the greatest "person" but he is possibly one of the most physically perfect human beings in the world. I guess I'm just in awe of him and his resting heart rate of 38 bpm.

Anyway. Lester pitched pretty well. He made it into the seventh inning, which in and of itself is pretty impressive, and only walked two batters. He did give up ten hits (including a home run to Josh Hamilton) and three runs but it was really good to see him display some control. He also struck out five.

In the post-game press conference he seemed to say that he was making more of an effort to trust himself to be able to get guys out. He set out with the purpose of getting every guy he faced out and trying not to be afraid that the next guy he faced was going to sink him. I'd never thought of it before (and this is pure conjecture on my part) but one could infer from the sentiment that in the past when he got behind in the count, he gave up a little bit. Probably figuring that he'd have better luck with the next guy. The new philosophy seemed to work well for him. Hopefully, he can stick with it.

The bullpen pitched well tonight, as well. They held the Rangers scoreless over two and two-thirds innings. Manny Del walked one and stuck out two. Timlin gave up two hits but also got a ground out and a pop-fly out. Javier Lopez got a line-drive out on a very nice running catch by Ellsbury. And Papelbon gave up a base hit, got Botts to ground into a fielder's choice for the force out at second, a pop-up to shallow left, and a fly out to deep center to end the game.

This game wasn't as run-tastic as the last couple of games have been. In the first inning, Ellsbury started off the game with a double, moved to third on a sacrifice hit by Pedroia, and then scored when Ortiz grounded into a double play. Then Manny walked and scored on a double by Youkilis. And that was it for scoring until the eighth inning.

In the eighth inning, Pedroia hit a one-out double and then came around to score on a base hit by Oritz to tie the game. Then came Manny. Manny who proceeded to knock number 496 out to Lansdowne Street-a two-run shot to give them the lead and eventually the win.