The Boston Red Sox, playing like the defending champions they are, came out swinging and beat Tampa Bay 4-2 on Saturday night to force a Game 7 in an American League Championship Series the Rays all but wrapped up two days earlier.
Slumping Jason Varitek hit a tiebreaking home run in the sixth inning and Boston went on to even the best-of-seven ALCS at 3-all. No late drama needed by the Red Sox this time - they rallied from seven runs down with only seven outs left to win Game 5.
Tonight, left-hander Jon Lester will start Game 7 for the Red Sox against Rays righty Matt Garza in a rematch of Game 3, won by Tampa Bay 9-1 at Fenway Park.
“It’s great to get to Game 7, to battle like this,” said Boston’s Kevin Youkilis, who homered and drove in two runs. “We went out there and played like it was our last game. It was awesome.”
The pennant winner will host the World Series opener Wednesday night against the well-rested Philadelphia Phillies, who won the National League pennant over the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
“It’s all about how we react to the moment, and it’s a seventh game,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “It’s a great learning experience. For us to win that game would be something special for us, also. So it’s not about looking into the past. It’s about looking into the future right now.”
Red Sox ace Josh Beckett, who struggled in his first two starts of the playoffs, allowed two runs and four hits in five innings despite reduced velocity, and Hideki Okajima, Justin Masterson and Jonathan Papelbon combined for hitless relief.
“It’s probably pretty appropriate,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. “We come down to the last game, and whoever plays better gets to move on.”
B.J. Upton tied an AL record with his seventh homer of the postseason. After Boston went ahead 2-1, Tampa Bay tied it on Jason Bartlett’s fifth-inning homer. But the Rays didn’t get another hit, and the Red Sox improved to 9-0 in ALCS elimination games under Francona.
Varitek, the Red Sox captain, was 0-for-14 in the series before his homer in the sixth finished Shields, who allowed four runs and nine hits in 5 2/3 innings.
“He wears a ‘C’ on that jersey for a lot of different reasons, but none more important than how much respect everybody in that clubhouse, including players, coaches, upper management, has for him,” Beckett said.
David Ortiz added an RBI single off J.P. Howell to pad the lead.
Boston bounced back from a 3-1 ALCS deficit in 1986 against the California Angels, then in 2004 became the first major league team to win a postseason series when trailing 3-0, beating the New York Yankees for the pennant before sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
Last year, the Red Sox trailed the Cleveland Indians 3-1 before winning three in a row, then sweeping the Colorado Rockies for their second Series title in four seasons.
It was a strange night in different ways. The first 20 minutes of the game weren’t shown on television because TBS had an equipment failure.
And plate umpire Derryl Cousins left with a bruised collarbone after three innings, causing a 15-minute delay. Cousins was struck by a foul ball hit by Varitek in the second but remained in the game until the delay. He was replaced by crew chief Tim McClelland, who had been working first base.
Upton, who hit nine homers in 531 regular-season at-bats, homered in the first inning off Beckett, driving the ball off one of the catwalks at Tropicana Field. He tied Troy Glaus (2002) with his seventh homer in a single postseason, one behind record-holders Barry Bonds (2002) and Carlos Beltran (2004).
Right after that, the television broadcast began.
Youkilis led off the second inning with his drive into the left center-field seats off Shield, then gave the Red Sox a 2-1 lead in the third when he grounded out after Dustin Pedroia walked and raced to third on Ortiz’s double down the right-field line.
Bartlett’s homer tied it in the fifth.
Okajima pitched two scoreless innings, and Masterson got out of a potential tight situation in the eighth. He hit Bartlett with a pitch leading off and went to a 2-0 count on Akinori Iwamura when pitching coach John Farrell visited the mound. Papelbon struck out Iwamura, got two straight outs, and then Papelbon pitched a 1-2-3 ninth, extending his major league-record career postseason scoreless streak to 25 innings covering 16 appearances.
“The important thing is we found a way to win this game,” Varitek said. “It was a big win for us."
