Projo Sox Blog

"We didn't want to go to Boston down 2-0," said Evan Longoria, and the Tampa Bay Rays were willing to do just about anything to ensure they wouldn't.

Including playing 11 innings. Including being out there for 5 hours and 27 minutes.

But in the end they were the last ones standing, as they pulled out a 9-8, 11-inning win over the Red Sox in Game Two, tying the American League Championship Series at 1-1. The series now shifts to Fenway Park for the next three games.

Mike Timlin came on in the 11th, the seventh Boston pitcher of the night, and put himself in an immediate jam by walking the first two batters he faced, Dioner Navarro and Gabe Gross. A slow grounder to third base by Jason Bartlett advanced the runners to second and third with one out.

The Sox intentionally walked Akinori Iwamura, loading the bases and setting up a force at every base. But B.J. Upton foiled the strategy with a fly ball down the right-field line that was just deep enough to score pinch-runner Fernando Perez from third; Perez beat J.D. Drew's throw with the winning run.

On a night when offense ruled, the game was sent into extra innings on -- of all things -- a wild pitch.

Dustin Pedroia raced home from third with two outs in the eighth on a wild pitch by Warwick's Dan Wheeler, tying the score at 8-8. Pedroia had opened the inning with a single off Chad Bradford and moved to second when Trever Miller walked David Ortiz. Wheeler came on and induced Kevin Youkilis to hit into a double play, with Pedroia taking third. Then came the wild pitch.

And then came extra innings.

After a stirring pitchers' duel between Daisuke Matsuzaka and James Shields Friday night, the Red Sox and Rays made the starters -- Josh Beckett and Scott Kazmir -- look like Triple-A cannon fodder.

Beckett, the Sox' one-time postseason ace, couldn't hold three leads his teammates handed him and was gone after 4 1/3 innings, having surrendered nine hits (including three home runs) and eight runs. Kazmir was just as bad, also routed after 4 1/3 innings after giving up six hits and five runs . . . and he also gave up three homers.

After Beckett's night was finished, the Rays held an 8-6 lead.

The Red Sox got a run back in the top of the sixth on a walk to Pedroia and singles by Youkilis and Jason Bay, making it 8-7.

Beckett had gone to the mound for the bottom of the fifth with a 6-5 lead, thanks to a three-homer outburst by his teammates in the top of the inning. It was the third time he'd gone out to protect a lead, as he went out in the bottom of the first with a 2-0 edge and in the bottom of the third with a 3-2 advantage. All three times he not only failed to hold the lead, but twice he allowed Tampa Bay to move in front.

Beckett's struggles, coming on the heels of a mediocre ALDS performance against the Angels, is what's most worrisome to the Red Sox, since any scenario for postseason success hinges on Beckett being the playoff monster he was in 2007.

The Rays' rally in the fifth started with a one-out walk to Upton. Upton stole second and scored the tying run on a single to right by Carlos Pena. Evan Longoria (homer, two doubles) then doubled into the left-field corner, scoring Pena with the go-ahead run, and he went to third on the throw to the plate.

That was all for Beckett, who was lifted in favor of Javier Lopez. Carl Crawford ripped Lopez' first pitch into right for a single and Longoria trotted home with the run that made it 8-6.

Bay hit the Red Sox' third home run of the fifth inning, and their fourth of the game, as Boston rallied to take a 6-5 lead after 4 1/2 innings. Pedroia and Youkilis had homered earlier in the inning as the Red Sox came back from a 5-3 deficit.

Tampa Bay has hit three home runs of its own, and the seven combined home runs has tied a postseason record.

Pedroia has two of the Sox' homers, solo shots in the third and fifth. Kazmir was lifted after Youkilis' homer, but Bay greeted reliever Grant Balfour with his homer to left.

The Rays were nearly as prolific against Beckett, getting a two-run homer from Longoria in the first, and solo shots from Upton in the third and Cliff Floyd in the fourth.

The Red Sox had taken a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on a two-out, two-run double by Bay, but Longoria's homer tied it. Pedroia's first homer put the Red Sox back in front in the third, before Upton tied it and Crawford (RBI single) put the Rays ahead, 4-3, in the bottom of the third. Floyd's homer in the bottom of the fourth upped Tampa Bay's lead to 5-3; then Pedroia and Youkilis pulled Boston even again and Bay put the Sox ahead.

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