By the end of a chilly night more suited for the champion Boston College hockey team, which was on the mound for first pitch ceremonies, even the eternally young Fred Lynn, sitting in the Legends suite, looked like he'd been trapped in Shangri-La (That's a reference out of "Lost Horizon," written by James Hilton in 1933, but it might as well have been last night).
But while the final out may have been long in coming - at its halfway point, the game had lasted 2 hours and 24 minutes, or 14 minutes longer than it took the Royals to beat the Twins yesterday in Kansas City - the Sox could at least stumble onto their plane to Cleveland relieved to have taken two out of three from their archrivals, having held on for an 8-5 win over the Yankees before a crowd of 37,876.
"It was a long, cold night, but it turned into a long, cold good night," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who won with a shorthanded bullpen, Javier Lopez stepping up on a night in which neither Jonathan Papelbon nor Hideki Okajima was available.
Lopez rescued Mike Timlin, who for the second time in two outings this season gave up a home run to the first batter he faced - Jason Giambi both times - then gave up singles to Jose Molina and pinch hitter Melky Cabrera - to put the tying runs on with no outs in the eighth. On came Lopez, who induced Johnny Damon to ground to second, where Dustin Pedroia alertly tagged Cabrera, then threw across his body to double up Damon.
Lopez then coaxed another grounder to second from Robinson Cano to end the inning, retired Bobby Abreu on a groundball to short to start the ninth, then gave way to Manny Delcarmen, who whiffed Alex Rodriguez and retired Hideki Matsui on a ground ball to end it at 12:06 a.m., 3 hours and 55 minutes after it began.
"Petey having the wherewithal to make that play was a huge part of this game," Francona said.
