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INDIANS 13, RED SOX 6: Sean McAdam -- Sox, Indians have only just begun »
October 14, 2007
BOSTON – It was past 1 in the morning Sunday when Eric Gagne entered the game, long past the witching hour at Fenway Park.
The score was tied at 6-6, it was the top of the 11th inning, and there really wasn’t anybody else. Jonathan Papelbon had already pitched two innings. Mike Timlin had pitched. Manny Delcarmen had pitched. Mariano Rivera wasn’t available. Neither was Jim Lonborg, who had thrown out the ceremonial first pitch nearly five hours earlier. Apparently neither was anyone else.
So Gagne got the ball.
The same Eric Gagne who has been a disaster since he came here from Texas at the trading deadline. The same Eric Gagne who has become the symbol of fan discontent in the last two months of the season, as if he really was J.D. Drew’s secret brother, the two players who have failed to have lived up to expectations, the two players who have been the most villified.
By the time he left the game there were Indians on first and second, Trot Nixon was coming to the plate to face lefthanded Javier Lopez, the same Trot Nixon who used to make his living in right field for the Red Sox before the Sox decided last winter that he was expendable. By the time he left the game the Sox already were in big trouble, the sword about to fall on their head.
All this in the crucial second game in this ALCS series with Cleveland.
Back before Nixon singled in the go-ahead run. Back before the floodgates opened, and the Sox gave up an amazing seven runs in the inning, turning what had been a tense extra-inning battle into a late-game blowout. All of which was one more reminder that baseball can be one strange game.
''We came back and showed some resiliency tonight,’’ Nixon said of his Cleveald teammates, who had been blown out Friday night. ''We hung in there.’’
Did they ever.
On a night they truly needed to.
For you can make a case that the second game of a series determines how a series is going to play out. Don’t believe it? Consider this: In seven out of the last eight ALCS series, the team that won game two went on to win the series.
If nothing else, the second game is a game in which there’s pressure on both teams, certainly more pressure than there is in the first game.
The home team?
The home team has to win to hold serve, to keep the home-field advantage. If they do, they put all the pressure on the visiting team, which now looks at third game as a must win. If the Sox had won they would not only have beaten the Indians' two aces, they also would have sent a powerful message. The series could have gotten away from them Indians before they even got back to Cleveland.
And the visiting team?
If the visiting team wins Game Two, the series suddenly gets interesting. Or as the old axiom says, a series doesn’t really start until the home team loses.
So it was on an October night in Fenway Park, two teams going into the night in the crucial second game of the series.
It was a night in which Curt Schilling was going to take the ball and give us another memory tune, one more night when he was going to be a great postseason pitcher, getting by on guile and experience, his compensation for the fact that at 40 years old he no longer can bring the heat he once did. Another night in which he was going to stop time, like he did against the Angels.
That was the plan anyway, and the Sox had a 3-1 lead going into the fourth inning before it all fell apart. An inning later Schilling was down 5-3, courtesy of a couple of home runs, and Terry Francona was coming out to take the ball from him. Then again, throwing 88 miles an hour as Schilling now so often does is living on the edge.
But that was only the first act of the drama.
And before it all played out Schilling was little more than an afterthought, no different that the Indians' Fausto Carmona, who also was gone in the fifth. Before it all played out it almost became like another game, going into the eighth inning with the game tied at six apiece. And for the longest while it looked like it was going to be a classic postseason game, until it got away in the top of the 11th.
''It was one of the most exciting games I’ve ever been a part of,’’ said Francona. ''It just didn’t work out very well for us. We were trying to stop one run and the bottom fell out for us.’’
Yes, it did.
At the worst possible time.
To his credit Schilling took the blame, even though he was long gone by the time the game was actually decided. Then again, maybe Schilling is never better than when he has not pitched well.
''No one should feel bad in the clubhouse but me,’’ he said. ''I forced our bullpen into a situation that essentially was unwinnable. It was all about me coming up small in a big game.’’
Maybe so.
But it was not all on Schilling, not even close. Nor was it all Gagne, even though he put two men on base, giving Nixon the chance to put on Superman’s cape and be the hero. Lopez completely unraveled, not only giving up the hit to Nixon but also throwing a wild pitch that made the score 8-6, the enthusiasm running out of Fenway as quickly as the fans heading for the exists. The rest was all piling on.
For in the end it didn’t matter to the Indians how much they won by, just that they had won. They had come in here looking to win a game, to not only get some momentum in this series, but also to remove the Red Sox’ home-field advantage.
They did that.
And in doing so they have turned this into a series.
''It was a big win to come out of here with a split,’’ Nixon said.
Yes, it was.
For second games of a series are always big.
For both teams.
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