That was fun. I can't imagine that there is anything better than a come-from-behind, edge-of-your-seat, nail-biter of a win. There were some bad performances mixed in with the good ones but the good far outshone the bad.
Lester went four and one third innings. He started out strongly but he continued to struggle with his command and he continued to throw too many pitches. Through the first three innings he issued a walk and a base hit; but he did strike out two. He had, however, already thrown forty-four pitches by the time he headed back to the dugout. The fourth inning and the beginning of the fifth did not go well for him. He threw fifty-three more pitches to the next thirteen batters before Francona pulled him from the game. In that time he allowed five base hits, four walks, and four runs. He did get an additional strike out, a fly out to Crisp, a pop out to Casey, and a put out at first. The problem, according to Francona in the postgame interview, was in part due to the fact that Lester seemed lose his composure when calls didn't go his way. If that is the case, then it's not entirely a bad thing. He's a young guy (who for some reason I imagine to be an only child) and it's definitely something that can be worked on and fixed.
Tavarez was the biggest surprise of the night, though. When he came on to clean up Lester's mess, the bases were loaded, there was only one out, and the Indians were up by three. I will admit to cringing when they showed him warming up in the pen. What does Tavarez do? He proceeds to get the next two batters to strike out swinging. He came back out for the sixth and the seventh innings and even though he had allowed two hits, the Indians were still only up by three when he was done. He had two more strike outs, two put outs at first, and two fly outs to center.
Mike Timlin made his third appearance of the year in the eighth inning and it went significantly better than his previous two appearances. He was getting guys to chase his pitches and he was hitting his spots. He got a pop out, a fly out, a strike out, and the win.
Papelbon finished the game and got his fifth save of the season. He finished off the Indians by blowing his fastball by them for two swinging strike outs. Travis Hafner hit a ball to deep center that almost looked as if it was going to be a home run but Coco easily grabbed it to end the game.
There were two big offensive stories to the game. The first was that Ortiz got two hits in the game (one off Westbrook who he hadn't well at all previously and one off Borowski.) I yelped when he got his hit in the first inning-I was very excited for him. And not to take anything away from Mike Lowell's bad mojo removal ceremony but I think this falls much more squarely on Hank Steinbrenner's shoulders. A David Ortiz jersey is buried beneath Yankee stadium and David Ortiz has not been able to hit at all this season. The Ortiz jersey is dug up and removed, apparently at great expense and with great ceremony, and the next game he plays in Ortiz can hit again. Coincidence?
The second big offense story was Manny Ramirez and number 493. Hit with two outs in the top of the ninth, it knocked in both Ramirez and Ortiz (who was being run for by Ellsbury) and gave the Red Sox the lead.
Hopefully not forgotten in the noise surrounding those two stories, Kevin Youkilis had a very nice night. He hit a double in the first inning that knocked in the first run of the game, his first home run of the year in the eighth inning, and a double in the ninth inning.
The ninth inning rally was all started off by Lugo also hitting a double. Coco bunted and was called out at first but he succeeded in moving Lugo over to third. Then Pedroia hit a sacrifice fly to right that allowed Lugo to score and tie the game.
In addition, Varitek had a double in the fourth inning that they weren't able to do anything with; Coco had a base hit in the second and Manny had one in the sixth that both suffered the same fate.
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