Varitek added his third hit of the night, an eighth-inning single, batting from the right side.
``Awesome," Schilling said after Varitek provided a huge assist to his league-leading ninth win, both at the plate and behind it. ``Jason is a guy who's struggling. He's not a .230 hitter. He never has been. I know he feels it. He might not acknowledge it, he might not show it, but he's working as hard as anybody to get it right."
For much of the week, Varitek could not have been having a more miserable time in the Apple than if he'd been asked to stand in for the Naked Cowboy in the middle of Times Square.
Monday night, facing his all-time nemesis, Mike Mussina (5 for 52 lifetime), Varitek came to bat twice, once with the bases loaded, once with runners on first and second, no outs each time, and grounded into double plays.
Tuesday night, he took an 0 for 4, and got the ball out of the infield once.
Last night, Varitek (3 for 5 with 4 RBIs) came up with the bases loaded in the first inning and tapped back to the pitcher, Jaret Wright, who started an inning-ending double play.
In the fourth, with a runner on first, one out, and Manny Ramírez taking off on the hit and run, Varitek barely avoided grounding into another DP, just beating the relay from Robinson Cano.
At that point, Varitek's line in the series read: 0 for 8, 3 double plays, 2 strikeouts. His average against the Yankees this season: 1 for 26, .038.
But that all changed when he lined an RBI single to left-center off Wright to score Ramírez with the run that cut the Sox' deficit to 3-2, then blasted a three-run home run the next inning against Scott Proctor to break open the game.
``I've just been battling my timing and the way I see the ball," said Varitek, who raised his average to .247, the highest it has been since May 7, when he went into a 6-for-34 spin that had him bottoming out at .228. ``I'm just worried about getting to the place where I know I'm competing, handling the mistakes, handling the pitches I normally handle."
