ST. PETERSBURG – Josh Beckett and Scott Kazmir stunk on the hill. Excluding Hideki Okajima and Dan Wheeler, to a point, the hurlers who followed the starters weren’t easier on the bleary eyes watching the two best teams in the AL stumble over each other.
Dustin Pedroia, Jason Bay, Kevin Youkilis and Evan Longoria shined at the plate, but as the marathon progressed the gloss diminished.
Yet much to the delight of a sold-out Tropicana Field crowd, the Rays outlasted the Red Sox 9-8 in 11 innings last night in Game 2 of the ALCS in a contest that took 5 hours and 27 minutes and produced seven homers – two by Pedroia, the undersized Red Sox second baseman.
The Rays victory, which was witnessed by 34,904, evened the best-of-seven series at 1-1 before it shifts from a dome with fake grass to historic Fenway Park for Game 3 late tomorrow afternoon.
The seven combined homers set an ALCS record and tied the LCS mark. In addition to Pedroia homering, Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay went deep for the Red Sox, while B.J. Upton, Longoria (3-for-5, 3 RBIs) and Cliff Floyd homered for the winners.
Mike Timlin, the antique right-handed reliever and the 14th pitcher used, started the 11th by walking Dioner Navarro. Fernando Perez ran for the catcher. Timlin’s first three pitches to Ben Zobrist were balls, and pitching coach John Farrell was ejected after the third one. Timlin’s next pitch was a strike but he walked Zobrist.
With the potential winning run on second and no outs, Jason Bartlett was in sacrifice bunt mode. He took a strike and bunted the second pitch foul. At 1-2, the No. 9 hitter moved the runners a base each with a grounder to Youkilis at third.
Red Sox manager Terry Francona ordered Akinori Iwamura walked intentionally to load the bases with one out for Upton, who had homered in the third.
With the infield in and the count, 0-2, Upton lofted a fly to short right that J.D. Drew caught but didn’t throw strongly to the plate and Perez beat the throw to end the game.
“Not necessarily in the air, but I wanted to put it in play,” Upton said. “I knew I couldn’t strike out. I wanted to put the ball in play and put pressure on the defense.”
Dan Wheeler, an ex-Met, surfaced in the eighth to induce Youkilis to hit into a 6-4-3 double play with runners on first and second and no outs. However, he uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Pedroia to race home safely from third and tie the score, 8-8.
Wheeler, the Rays’ closer, logged an unheard of 3 innings, which accentuated how important the game was to manager Joe Maddon.
“So many guys did wonderful jobs – how about Dan Wheeler?” Maddon said.
When Wheeler walked Jed Lowrie with one out in the 11th, Maddon summoned neophyte lefty David Price to face Drew, a left-handed hitter. Price, the first pick in the 2007 draft out of Vanderbilt, walked Drew and then faced Mark Kotsay, another swinger from the left side. Price caught Kotsay looking for the second out and went after switch-hitter Coco Crisp.
The 23-year-old who had to be talked out of quitting Vanderbilt because he didn’t get hitters out in an intra-squad game, got Crisp on a grounder to third to strand two.
Bay’s two-out single in the sixth off Chad Bradford scored Pedroia and reduced the Rays’ lead to 8-7. It was Bay’s fourth RBI of the game.
After squandering a 5-2 lead and falling behind, 6-5, in the top of the fifth the Rays scored three runs in the home half of the inning and chased Beckett. Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford delivered RBI singles around Longoria’s double to left that scored Pena from first.
Beckett, who was bothered by an oblique muscle problem late in the season and pitched ineffectively in an ALDS start against the Angels, surrendered eight runs, nine hits (three homers) in 4 innings.
In two October starts, Beckett has given up five homers. That’s one more than he allowed in the previous nine postseason outings.
The Rays’ 5-2 lead going into the fifth vanished quickly when three of the first four Red Sox homered.
Pedroia opened with his second homer to left in front of David Ortiz’ fly out to right. Youkilis tied the score 5-5 with a homer to left, and the homer barrage continued when Grant Balfour replaced Kazmir and gave up a blast to Bay that put the visitors ahead, 6-5.
Two consecutive walks forced Maddon to replace Balfour with lefty J.P. Howell and he restored order by retiring Kotsay and Crisp.
Kazmir, who required 98 pitches to record 13 outs, allowed five runs and six hits in 4 innings. ?