For the better part of four hours, it was a raucous house party.
Then it turned into Black Friday.
Five runs ahead and six outs away from taking a decisive step to their first division title in a dozen years, the Red Sox were brought to their knees by a hail of Yankee hits in a six-run eighth inning that leveled Hideki Okajima, and most shocking of all, closer Jonathan Papelbon, in an 8-7 loss that seemingly turned in a New York minute.
Rather than having to work on their concession speeches, the Yankees sent an unmistakable message that even if they don't overtake the Sox in the American League East, they will be a force to be reckoned with if they are still playing in October. With the regular season due to end two weeks from tomorrow, the Yankees drew to within 4 1/2 games of the Sox in the AL East, while remaining 3 1/2 games ahead of Tigers in the wild-card race.
"Every loss right now is crushing," said Sox catcher and captain Jason Varitek, "but we've got to pull ourselves together and go back out there and be ready to play tomorrow."
Down, 7-2, to start the eighth, the Yankees first unloaded on Okajima, with Jason Giambi and Robinson Cano hitting consecutive home runs, neither one cheap. Giambi's cleared the Yankees' bullpen, Cano the wall in dead center field. Okajima then walked Melky Cabrera and gave up a double scorched into the left-center-field gap by Johnny Damon, with four hits an irritant to his former mates all night.
"Uncharacteristically, everything was over the middle of the plate," Sox manager Terry Francona said. "Elevated and he couldn't get out of the middle. They squared it up in a hurry."
It was 11:09 p.m. when Francona summoned Papelbon, as close to a sure thing in the AL this season, to face Derek Jeter. The Yankees' captain, who made an error in the first inning and struck out with the bases loaded to end the sixth, flared Papelbon's first pitch into right field for a single, scoring Cabrera to make it 7-5 and sending Damon to third. Bobby Abreu took a strike, then lined Papelbon's next pitch off the wall in center, scoring Damon and Jeter to tie the score. Abreu moved up to third when Dustin Pedroia's relay to the plate bounced away from Varitek.
Then it was Alex Rodriguez's turn to undress Papelbon. The consensus MVP took a strike, then ripped a 96-mile-per-hour fastball into center for the hit that made it 8-7. A sellout crowd of 36,590, which had spent much of the long evening in high spirits, suddenly had about as much reason to celebrate as Bill Belichick.
READER COMMENTS »
View reader comments » Comment on this story »