Shipping Back To Boston by Jared Carrabis
Beckett, Red Sox Send ALCS Back To Fenway

Game 5 of the 2007 American League Championship Series could very well mark the turning point for the down but not out Boston Red Sox. The focus going into Thursday night’s game was more than just to win because winning meant a lot more than that. The primary focus of Game 5 was to get this series back to Fenway Park. Josh Beckett single handedly bought 25 plane tickets back to Boston for this series to continue Saturday night. The efforts of the enthusiastic right-handed flamethrower are keeping Red Sox World Series dreams alive throughout all of Red Sox Nation.


Beckett picked up his third win of the postseason in as many tries in Game 5 by absolutely mowing down the Cleveland Indians up and down their lineup. The fired up crowd of 44,588 were waving their towels and anticipating Josh Beckett to be due for a rough outing because he can’t be that amazing, can he? Beckett silenced the Jake in eight masterful innings of work in which he tied a career high for postseason strikeouts with eleven. Beckett yielded a mere five hits and one earned run over his eight innings of pure domination.


Boston wasted zero time getting an early advantage when the second batter of the game, Kevin Youkilis, took the left-handed Cleveland “ace” out of the yard to give the Red Sox an early 1-0 advantage. Although Boston would only get one run in the top of the first, things were looking good for the Sox when every out was a ball that was tattooed.


Red Sox fans from all over were screaming at their televisions in the top of the third inning when Manny Ramirez skied a ball to centerfield that hit on the very top of the outfield wall and then bounced up and then back into the field of play. The opinions of many were that this ball was a two run home run. Unfortunately, the only opinion that matters are that of the umpires and the ball was not ruled a home run. Manny Ramirez was under the impression that this ball was a home run and thus did not continue to run, rather he stayed at first base when he should have been on second base at least. His teammate David Ortiz played it safe regardless of how close to a home run it may have been and scored all the way from first on the play giving the Red Sox a 2-1 lead.


The bottom of the fifth featured some sparks flying from an old grudge between Josh Beckett and Kenny Lofton. On a 3-0 pitch, Beckett threw a fastball inside to Kenny Lofton and Lofton dropped his bat and decided on his own that this pitch was a ball. Home plate umpire, Gary Cederstrom, disagreed with Lofton’s initial reaction and Lofton then had to pick his bat back up and do it again. He then flew out to left field and on his way to first base he exchanged words with Mr. Beckett. Credit to Gary Cederstrom for not allowing things to get out of hand and getting the game back to normal right away.


CC Sabathia’s line may only show that he gave up four earned runs, but things could have been a lot worse for the Tribe’s big man. Sabathia got out multiple jams in which the Red Sox had runners in scoring positions and balls were just laced but unfortunately it was always directly at someone. CC Sabathia got the hook after giving up his tenth hit of the night to the Boston offense.


Eric Wedge made a rare managerial mistake by putting Sabathia back out to pitch in the seventh inning when he was already at 100+ pitches. He failed to get an out and got a Boston rally going by surrendering an leadoff double to Red Sox second basemen Dustin Pedroia to start things off. Following Pedroia was Kevin Youkilis who tripled on a ball hit to deep right centerfield that was misplayed by Grady Sizemore. Sabathia made his exit after hurling 112 pitches and 70 were for strikes.


The Red Sox bats opened things up a bit in the top of the eighth by donating three more runs to the “Get Home To Fenway” cause. The Sox were one batter short of batting around on the Cleveland bullpen as “Let’s go Red Sox” chants grew louder and the population on the streets surrounding Jacobs Field skyrocketed.


The top of the Sox order did their job tonight and by doing so, the Red Sox won by a convincing margin. The bottom of the order is simply not getting it done. If this team is going to advance, they need a relentless lineup with no holes in it. Coco Crisp is simply not getting the job done. Jacoby Ellsbury needs to start in center for Game 6 of this series. You are getting relatively similar talent defensively and it is impossible for him to do any worse than Coco has done for the Red Sox this series. Adding Jacoby Ellsbury to this lineup just may be that last and final spark this team needs to bury the Cleveland Indians.

ALCS Game 5: Red Sox 7, Indians 1

Published on October 18, 2007

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