Sox: wrap party

Now everyone has to wait until Wednesday, when the real fun starts. Josh Beckett vs. John Lackey. Around these here parts, we kinda regard that as appointment TV.

"It's exciting," said catcher Jason Varitek. "It's an exciting time of the year."

The captain gave his many fans a regular-season farewell present by slamming his 17th homer of the season in the sixth inning. In so doing, he messed up his skipper's grand plan. It was going to be Varitek's last at-bat, and the idea was that if he happened to get on, he would be pulled for a pinch runner, allowing the crowd to do what it had done when Terry Francona had removed both Dustin Pedroia and Mike Lowell after they had taken the field in the top of the inning - salute them with an ovation.

"It just felt right to let the fans show Mike Lowell what he had meant to them this year," Francona explained. "I was going to pinch run for Varitek, too, but I didn't need to."

The Twins scored all their runs in the first off Julian Tavarez, making his 23d start of the year and his first since Aug. 31. But that was the end of Minny's offense for the day. For, starting with the final out of the first inning (a Matt LeCroy ground out) Tavarez and five relievers retired 23 Twins in succession before pinch hitter Jason Kubel hit a one-out ground-rule double off Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth. So while the outcome was irrelevant, the skipper certainly felt that kind of dazzling performance from his many relievers meant something.

"Very pleased, very pleased," Francona said. "[That's] the way we drew it up - not the first inning - but after that, everybody came in, starting with [Jon] Lester and had clean innings. They threw strikes, didn't get stretched out too much. It worked out very well."

The parade of untouchables included Lester (two innings), Mike Timlin, Manny Delcarmen, Eric Gagné, and Papelbon, none of whom needed more than 20 pitches (Lester) to get the job done. Yes, this even included a rare 1-2-3 eighth for Gagné, although second baseman Alex Cora did have to roam a bit to his right to flag down a hot shot off the bat of Brian Buscher.