Well it was close for a little while. And things may have been different if Joel Skinner sent Kenny Lofton home on a single by Franklin Gutierrez in the 7th inning. Or if Travis Hafner showed some of the bat speed against Jonathan Papelbon that enabled him to hit 42 home runs just a year ago. But it wasn't meant to be. The Red Sox and their "Nation" outlasted the Indians and dominated the last 3 games of the ALCS to advance to the World Series against the Colorado Rockies.
Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis each went 3-for-5 with a double and a home run. Pedroia scored 3 times and drove in 5. Youk crossed home plate twice and knocked in 2. Josh Beckett was named the series MVP. Red Sox win the series, 4-3.
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W: D. Matsuzaka (W, 1-1); L: J. Westbrook (L, 1-1); S: J. Papelbon (S, 1) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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HR: BOS: K. Youkilis (3), D. Pedroia (1). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Game Notes
- Kevin Youkilis batted .500 (14-28) in this series, establishing an ALCS record for a 7-game series, besting California’s Bob Boone, who batted .455 in 1986…The 14 hits by Youkilis match Hideki Matsui (2004) and Albert Pujols (2004) for most-ever in an LCS series…Youkilis scored 10 runs in this ALCS, establishing an ALCS record, one more than MATSUI in 2004.
- The Red Sox hit (.318) for the 2007 ALCS, an LCS-record for a best-of-seven series, becoming just the 2nd team since the advent of the best-of-seven series to hit better than .300 in an ALCS (Toronto, .301, 1993)…The Red Sox set an LCS record for most runs scored in a series, with 51 runs, besting the previous-high of 45, set by New York (AL) in 2004.
- The Red Sox grounded into 3 more double plays tonight, giving them 20 for the postseason, eclipsing a single-postseason record of 17, set by St. Louis in the 2006 postseason (16 games)…Boston has 14 GIDPs in this series, 4 more than the all-time LCS record (Baltimore, 10, 1997).
- Boston outscored Cleveland 30-5 in the final 3 games of this series.
- Josh Beckett has been named the Most Valuable Player of the 2007 American League Championship Series…Beckett was 2-0, 1.93 (3 er/14 ip) walked just one batter and fanned 18, earning the victories in Games One and Five in this series…The LCS MVP is the 1st for Beckett, who was named Most Valuable Player of the 2003 World Series with Florida…Beckett is the 3rd Red Sox player to ever win an ALCS MVP Award, joining David Ortiz (2004) and Marty Barrett (1986).
Recapping the Game in Quotes
Q. Speaking of that experience factor, do you and some of the other younger guys feed off of that personally? Do you get a sense of confidence, a sense of calmness from talking to some of these veteran guys who have been through this?
DUSTIN PEDROIA: Absolutely. You know, we've never been through this. This is on the biggest stage. Everyone is watching these games. I remember the Angels series, I was nervous. Alex Cora told me, "Hey, settle down, be yourself, have fun. This game is meant to be played, have fun. Play as hard as you can and leave it out there on the field. If we lose, we lose. Don't have any regrets." You know, ever since then I kind of went out there, and I don't worry about anything but playing hard. I think everybody is doing that. Nobody cares about anything, just picking each other up and playing the game to win.
Q. Kind of along those lines, there was a stretch in the middle of the series where you weren't getting hits in parts of the lineup, and then the last three games you've got a lot of runs, a lot of hits throughout this team. Can you just talk about the switch, I guess, of that going on?
TERRY FRANCONA: Well, even tonight, though, early on we really didn't. We created a lot of opportunities early, but we couldn't put more than one up. Like I said, Westbrook got so comfortable that it looked like maybe we would have to make a stand. Kenny doesn't score on the ball down the line, has a chance to be 3-3. Oki makes a great pitch on Blake, gets a double play, and then again, it gave us time to start tacking on. You get into the bullpen and things start going wrong. You have to walk people and it can get away. It happened to us earlier here in the series.
Q. As disappointing as the last three nights were, will there come a point where you can see this as part of a progression or growth for your club?
ERIC WEDGE: Yeah, I already do. It's not something I'm thinking about right now. I felt that even prior to this series. I'm disappointed obviously we weren't able to finish it off. I'm proud as I could be of our players. I've told them, it's been my honor and privilege to manage this baseball team. The respect that they show for the game, what it means to be a great teammate, and how they play the game means more to me and to us as the Indians organization than anything, and those guys go out and do it that way and win on top of it. We fell short, but I think we learned a great deal in this postseason.
Postgame notes and quotes courtesy of MLB