Lowrie's ground single through the first base/second base hole brought home Jason Bay from second base and made the Red Sox 3-2 victors with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. It was an appropriate climax to a brilliant game that reminded the lucky spectators that when it comes to flat-out, unscripted, never-seen-that-before drama, there is baseball - especially playoff baseball - and there is everything else.
I mean, how great were those gripping final two innings? The Red Sox had it won, lost complete control of it, then won it back against a pitcher who had begun his night's work by striking out three of the first four men he faced.
That pitcher was Scot Shields, not Frankie Rodriguez. Where was K-Rod? He was watching, just like his counterpart, Jonathan Papelbon. Neither manager had the use of his All-Star closer, each of whom had done superb work the night before.
For seven innings the story was Jon Lester. Twice within five days, Angels ace John Lackey had found himself matched up against the 24-year-old Boston lefty, and twice he pitched well enough not to win. The big righty was touched up in only one inning, and even then he wasn't exactly smacked around, the Red Sox scoring the first run on a ground out (Howie Kendrick bobbled it, but it would have been difficult to turn two on Jacoby Ellsbury) and the second when Dustin Pedroia broke an 0-for-15 drought with a double off the Wall to bring home Jason Varitek.
Lackey's problem was that Lester had given the Angels nothing. They made him work to get through the first three innings (54 pitches), but, as usual, he had the right pitch for the occasion, leaving two men stranded in the second, third, and fifth.
The biggest moment had to be a two-on, two-out situation in the fifth, when he got the very dangerous Mark Teixeira looking on a 3-and-2 pitch after throwing a very close 2-and-2 pitch that had him walking off the mound toward the dugout, only to see plate umpire Ed Rapuano signal a ball. Coming back to freeze a great hitter such as Teixeira to get out of the situation tells you all you need to know about the kind of pitcher this young man has become.
"We needed to have Jon Lester give us a strong starting performance," said manager Terry Francona, "and he did that."
