The View From Landsdowne Street: Red Sox Refuse To Lay Down and Die

In the half-inning before Jason Bartlett, who hit one home run in the entire regular season, tied the game, ended Josh Beckett's night, and swung the momentum back to the home team all with one good swing on a bad curveball. So it was only fitting that something just as unlikely happened the next half-inning, and that was Jason Varitek saving the day.

Varitek's first hit of the series and fourth hit in 28 post season at-bats was a line drive home run that cleared the fence by maybe five feet, and gave the Red Sox bullpen all they needed to start making these new fans in Tampa Bay really nervous about tomorrow night.

Anyone who still feels supremely confident about the Rays' chances tomorrow night should call any friends or known relatives in Cleveland and ask them how they felt in Game 7 against the Red Sox last year, and then what the bottom line was at the end of the night.

Both Varitek's home run and David Ortiz's RBI single came with two outs in the top of the sixth inning, a trait that the Red Sox have been incredibly proficient at in the past 30 at-bats. In fact, at one point during the game TBS came up with the graphic that said the Red Sox were 14 for their last 28 with two outs.

That type of statistic is just one of many things that an observer can point to and say "That is why you can never count out the Boston Red Sox, in any season."

One of the other things is clutch pitching, and the Red Sox staff delivered in a big way tonight.

It wasn't Curt Schilling pitching seven innings of four hit baseball all while bleeding from his sock, but Josh Beckett gave the Red Sox and their belabored bullpen five strong innings, making only two mistakes (both home runs), all while it was clear that he was in a lot of pain.

I originally thought part of Beckett's ineffectiveness was due to his lack of fire, but it seems the oblique injury is bothering him more than the team or Beckett will let on. His pitches weren't devastating, and he wasn't blowing anyone away, but he hit all of his spots, and was very careful with the Rays' big sluggers, and then just handed the ball over to the bullpen, who could not have slammed the door any more emphatically.

If Terry Francona could have dreamt up the way his bullpen was going to replace Josh Beckett, I seriously doubt he envisioned something much different from what took place on the field from Hideki Okajima, Justin Masterson, and Jonathan Papelbon.

The trio pitched four solid innings allowing only one base runner, a walk issued by Okajima during his two innings of nearly flawless baseball. They didn't give the Rays even a glimmer of hope, and they made all the right pitches to make sure that Tampa couldn't build any momentum.

Now, Game 7 is a toss-up.

Jon Lester is probably the steadier pitcher between himself and Matt Garza, but Garza was a stud at home with an ERA under 3.00. The Red Sox will need to score more than four runs and they absolutely can not keep leaving 17 runners on base like they did tonight.

The bottom three hitters in the order (Mark Kotsay, Jed Lowrie, and Varitek) left nine of those 17 runners on base and continue to be the Achilles Heel of this year's club.

The inability to produce at the end of the order places a huge burden on the middle of the order, and with Jason Bay cooling off and Ortiz becoming inconsistent (and that's being generous) the Red Sox need more runs.

But at least the Red Sox are able to be in this situation. I stayed tuned for all of the miraculous Game 5, and got that same feeling after Kevin Youkilis crossed the plate that I did when Dave Roberts came around to score on Bill Mueller's single in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS.

Against all odds, and even with the odds still stacked against them, I felt confident about the Red Sox chances. Now looking forward to Lester is not the same as looking forward to Pedro in 2004 or Beckett in 2007, but if you can't see the similarities, then you haven't been following baseball.

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