So there he was, Howie Kendrick. Two sliders, two strikes. Seven straight pitches followed, seven straight fouls back behind the plate. And then, on the 37th pitch of the inning, with the "Howie" chant ringing through Angel Stadium, the liner dropped into the hands of Rocco Baldelli in right. For the win.
"After the fifth or sixth or seventh one, I was kind of giggling out there," said Papelbon, who had surrendered a homer to Torii Hunter leading off the ninth. "Is this really happening? It was kind of one of those moments where you're like, 'Man, how many more foul balls is this guy going to hit?' "
It was seven fouls, ultimately, 39 pitches in the four-out save of the 5-4 win, which likely leaves Papelbon on the bullpen bench for today's game, and possibly tomorrow's as well.
"Was that the proverbial 'had them all the way'?" manager Terry Francona said. "That was some kind of at-bat. Tek kept setting up, looked to me, farther away. It just wasn't going farther away. If you were a baseball fan - which at the moment I wasn't - that was an unbelievable at-bat."
Papelbon had gone with the sliders, two of them, to start. Then three fastballs, starting outside and heading upstairs, as Kendrick lofted them into the net behind the plate. He tried everything, though seemed loath to throw a splitter that might end up in the dirt. And finally, finally, it worked, though that line drive to right looked off the bat as if it might be able to find a bit of the gap.
"We couldn't quite get the ball expanded," Varitek said. "He kept doing a good job of fouling the ball off. We expanded up, away, or down, or off. He put together a pretty good at-bat."
But it was big only because of Jason Bay and Mike Lowell. With the Sox offense having trouble making magic of late, it was left to three swings by two men to prove the winning margin for the Sox. Or, as Bay said, "I think I probably doubled my April stats from every other April."
That might be an exaggeration for the career .276 hitter in April, but one can forgive him, especially after his two home runs powered the Sox yesterday.
