Green monsters

Francona's first inclination was to send pitching coach John Farrell to the mound, armed with written instructions translated by assistant trainer Masai Takahashi, on how to keep Rodriguez from adding to his epic home run tear. With two off Curt Schilling, A-Rod now has 12 in his first 15 games, a historic pace matching that set by Mike Schmidt of the Phillies in 1976.

"We had Masai writing stuff down on a card, that this guy's a real good hitter," Francona said. "I think he knew that. We said, 'The best thing to do is stay out of the way.' He looked like he was throwing the ball really well."

Moments later, after Okajima had retired A-Rod on a full-count, soft liner to second and struck out Kevin Thompson, who had run for strongman Jason Giambi in the eighth when the Yankees seemingly had the game in hand, Francona was out of the dugout.

"The closer we got," Francona said of the Sox' rally against Rivera, "I'll admit there was some anxiety, because Pap's not pitching. It's nice to look down there and see the big boy throwing.

"But it's an exciting night for us to run Oki out there and watch what he did. You saw the excitement in everyone's faces."

Francona let Okajima know, American-style, what he thought of his performance.

"I patted him on the chest," Francona said. "I think I knocked him back about 2 feet."

Okajima was puzzled when asked if he felt he was in any physical danger after the game. "I'm perfectly fine," he said, before pausing and asking, "Was that a joke?"

Assured that it was, Okajima smiled and offered a big thumbs-up.

"I wasn't expecting to go in and pitch in an important situation like this," said the "other" Japanese pitcher. "I never expected that things like this would happen to me today. It was a very precious moment for me."