Sox pass road test with flying colors

June 27, 2005|Globe Staff

PHILADELPHIA -- Bad umpiring, aching feet, sore shoulders, blazing temperatures, blown leads, a ticked-off opponent and a microchip of a ballpark, David Wells said, that is better suited for the Little League World Series than big league baseball.

That's the obstacle course the Red Sox had to navigate before returning home from their most significant run since they ran the table in New York and St. Louis last October. The last time the Sox were perfect on a trip of equal or greater duration was in 1977, when they had a 9-0 West Coast swing. The final steps were the toughest, and the most resourceful, as a surprise drag bunt by Johnny Damon, a highly improbable infield hit by David Ortiz, and a typical no-surrender sprint by Trot Nixon in a four-run eighth inning against the Phillies yesterday sent the Sox flying home with their seventh straight win, a 12-8 survival meeting that had the Sox landing at Logan last night after a 6-0 trip.

''It's a good trip -- other teams lose, we win, that's good," said Sox manager Terry Francona, who never once puffed out his chest this weekend in the town that tried to take his head off when he managed a lousy Phillies team back at the end of the '90s, which to him now seems a millennium ago.

''I watch the scoreboard, too, that's great," Francona said, ''but if we take care of what we're supposed to, regardless of what anyone else is doing, and play like this, you feel confident. That's what you're shooting for. That's why you grind them out. You've got a good team, you go out and grind them out and hope somebody falters that way."

The Sox did their usual bashing, banging out 15 hits, including a first-row, fly-ball grand slam by Manny Ramírez, the 19th of his career, placing him in a tie for second place all-time with Hall of Famer Eddie Murray, as well as home runs by Mark Bellhorn and Jason Varitek. In all seven of their wins, the Sox have had 10 or more hits, including a single yesterday by Wells, a career .115 hitter, that preceded Ramirez's slam in the fourth off Phillies starter Brett Myers.

''I don't even take BP," boasted Wells, who also had a run-scoring groundout in the fifth, and could have done without all the extra running on a hazy 87-degree day in which the plantar fasciitis in his right foot became an irritation. ''I refuse to take BP. I'm not going out there and take one off the foot or sting my hand. If I'm going to get hurt, it's going to be in the game, not BP."