BALTIMORE - The word came up again and again: character. Jason Varitek and Josh Beckett both used it, describing the way the Red Sox had come back yesterday, the way they had not given up, the way working a walk had led to a home run, and the way it had spiraled from there. Like the night before, only this time spiraling the Sox’ way, yet in a way they couldn’t have expected.
“That was a good character win for us,’’ Beckett said. “I wish I could say I had a lot to do with it.’’
“It was a big character win for us,’’ Varitek echoed.
Beckett had a lot to do with putting the Sox in the position they found themselves heading into the ninth inning. One day after the team had left shards of dignity on the field at Camden Yards, their best-in-baseball bullpen obliterated by 10 runs in two innings, the Sox were down by four runs with three outs to go.
But Dustin Pedroia worked a walk. And, as Orioles manager Dave Trembley said afterward, “If you’re going to walk people, it’s not the time to do it in the ninth inning.’’
“This is not a team that is going to roll over,’’ Julio Lugo said. “We never roll over. They’ve got to get 27 outs.’’
It spiraled, spurred on by an energizing two-run home run by Kevin Youkilis, and ended two innings later on a redemptive single by Lugo that capped off a 6-5 triumph in 11 innings that turned the night before on its head, turned the series around, and left the Sox with a celebration for the plane ride home.
“It was huge. After last night’s loss, we definitely wanted to bounce back,’’ Pedroia said. “It’s just one out of 162, it’s not like it’s the end of the world. Obviously, we play to win. We want to win every inning, we want to win every game. We just kept grinding. That’s why you play nine innings.
“We’re never going to quit. We have baseball players. We’re going to go out and play as hard as we can. We’ll try to win every game. We don’t care about anything else but winning.’’
Or, as manager Terry Francona said, “We needed to move on from last night. The easiest way to move on is to win.’’
Beckett was turning subpar feel and a flat fastball into five runs for the opposition, with one in the first, one in the second when Luke Scott blasted the first pitch of the inning out to left-center, two in the third, and one more on a leadoff homer (by Ty Wigginton) in the fourth. But Beckett settled himself, pitching three more innings, all 1-2-3, to keep the deficit at four runs.
