BOSTON – Mike Scioscia promised before the game that the Angels finally would snap their postseason losing streak to the Red Sox.
“We’re not getting eliminated tonight,” Scioscia said.
Turns out they were not getting eliminated in the early hours of this morning, either. The Angels squeezed across a run when light-hitting shortstop Eric Aybar dropped a single into center to score catcher Mike Napoli from second. Jered Weaver managed to get the Red Sox out in the bottom of the 12th and the Angels had their 5-4 victory at Fenway Park.
The Red Sox had won 11 straight postseason games against the Angels. Overall, the Red Sox had won their last nine playoff games. When Weaver retired Alex Cora on a sharp grounder to third for the final out the Fenway clock read 12:48.
The sloppy game lasted five hours and 19 minutes. The Red Sox lead the ALDS, 2-1 and can wrap it up tonight with Game 1 winner Jon Lester on the mound. Lester is 11-1 at Fenway this season.
If the Red Sox or Rays, who lead the White Sox 2-1 in their series, advance to the World Series, it would mark the ninth time in the past 14 seasons – since baseball went to the three-division format in 1995 – that the AL winner will be from the AL East. For the 10th time in those 14 seasons the AL wild card has come out of the AL East. That shows the strength of the division.
The Angels have played poorly much of the series and deserved to be swept away for the third straight time since 2004, but somehow survived. The hit by Aybar was his first of the series. He was 0-for-13.
“We’re a very confident team,” Aybar said.
Napoli was the Angels’ offense, hitting two home runs, a two-run shot in the third and a solo blast in the fifth and then leading off the 12th with the key single.
“That game was swinging on a heartbeat most of the night but we came away with the win,” Scioscia said. “They’re a tough club. They won their championship last year . . . but it’s different times now.”
Said Napoli, “We got some big hits tonight, we’re going to come out (tonight) and get after it again.”
Lester vs. John Lackey will be a repeat of the Game 1 matchup.
“We have to do a better job of pressuring Lester early,” Scioscia said.
The Angels have played some really dumb baseball throughout the series, never any worse than in the second inning with the bases loaded and two outs and Jacoby Ellsbury at the plate. Joe Saunders walked No. 9 hitter Coco Crisp to load the bases.
The left-hander got Ellsbury to pop a 3-2 pitch to short center. Torii Hunter, who hurt his knee in Game 2 arguing a call at first, got a bad break on the ball, and then slowed down. Second baseman Howie Kendrick should have taken two more steps and caught the pop, but stopped and the ball plopped onto the Fenway grass. Ellsbury wound up with a three-run single, the first ever in postseason play, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
“I thought for sure Howie had the ball,” Aybar said.
That play epitomized the Angels play in this series.
The outfield gaffe put the Red Sox up, 3-1. The Angels tied the score in the third with Napoli’s first home run, snapping the Angels 68-inning postseason homerless streak. It was a huge hit on a 3-2 breaking ball from Josh Beckett, who was not sharp.
“Hopefully about a month from now we’ll talk about that 3-2 breaking ball that Nap hit off one of the toughest pitchers ever in a playoff environment,” Scioscia said.
First things first, they need to get past Lester and the Red Sox tonight. There are no guarantees.