So ends the inexplicable Red Sox dominance over the Angels, who had lost 11 straight postseason games to the Sox dating from Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS.
One of the evening's big revelations was that Josh Beckett is not always going to be Superman in the postseason. The Sox starter's mortality was evident from the first pitch of the game, which Chone Figgins ripped for a ground-rule double down the right-field line.
That was the beginning of a rocky five-inning stint in which Beckett was reached for nine hits and four earned runs while twice being taken deep by Angels catcher Mike Napoli (the first caroming off the light tower nearest the left-field foul pole and landing on Lansdowne Street). In addition, Beckett walked four, which doubled his entire 2007 postseason total.
He was never really comfortable, holding the ball for endless stretches between pitches, as if telling the world he really had little interest in throwing it. Catcher Jason Varitek added to the tedium with several visits to the mound, and thus it was still the fourth inning two hours into the game.
But let the record show that Beckett's 106th and final pitch was a major bla-zah to fan Figgins in the fifth. He left the game trailing, 4-3, after giving up the second homer to Napoli with one out in the fifth, but the Sox got him a no-decision when Jacoby Ellsbury and Kevin Youkilis each doubled off Angels starter Joe Saunders to produce a run in the Sox' half of the inning.
Saunders had every reason to feel sorry for himself, for he should have been sitting on a 4-1 lead. He had run into a little trouble with two away and no one on in the second when he issued walks to Jed Lowrie and Coco Crisp, sandwiched around a single by Varitek.
Saunders thought he had Ellsbury struck out on a 2-and-2 pitch, but plate umpire Kerwin Danley wouldn't give him the call. But everything looked fine and dandy for him when Ellsbury hit the 3-and-2 pitch to fairly short center. Second baseman Howie Kendrick went back, center fielder Torii Hunter came in . . . and the ball dropped between them. Everyone was running, of course, which meant that all three runners scored on, yup, an honest-to-God single.
