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Thursday, September 17, 2009

When does the ALCS vs. the Yankees start?


As I texted to three of my friends, who were all (seperately) at the game last night, "the Red Sox own the Angels."

Sure that looked stupid when Anaheim (86-59) took a 7-5 lead in the seventh or an 8-7 lead in the top of the ninth.

At Fenway Park and against the Angels, the Sox (86-58) are world-beaters and they proved that once again with a thrilling 9-8 walk-off win courtesy of Alex Gonzalez. It was their seventh straight win overall and tenth in a row at home.

With Paul Byrd on the mound, the Angels built a 3-0 lead on a Erick Aybar (4 hits) infield single in the third, a Bobby Abreu (3 hits, 2 RBIs) RBI double in the fifth and solo bomb by Torii Hunter in the sixth.

Boston finally got to Angels starter Joe Saunders in the sixth, with a big assist from the usually reliable Angels defense.

Jason Bay (2 hits, steal) cut it to 3-2 with a two-run single and Rocco Baldelli tied it with an RBI single of his own.

Foreshadowing his walk-off bloop to win it, Gonzalez gave Boston a 5-3 lead with a flare to shallow right field which scored two.

Anaheim kept battling and scored three times in the seventh: Howie Kendrick RBI single, two-run double by Juan Rivera (3 hits) and an RBI double by Mike Napoli.

Both bullpens had their major troubles on the night as Boston scored twice more in the eighth. A run came in on Casey Kotchman's groundout and Jacoby Ellsbury's RBI single tied it at 7.

Abreu's RBI single in the ninth off Daniel Bard (2-1) (Papelbon and Wagner weren't available) looked like the game-winner with the bottom of the lineup due up in the home half of the inning.

In one of the most improbable comebacks you'll ever see, Nick Green walked with the bases loaded (after taking a pitch for ball four that was clearly a strike) and then Gonzalez hit a broken bat single to left off Brian Fuentes (1-5), who threw 27 pitches.

Josh Beckett faces Ervin Santana tonight in the series finale and I think after the craziness of the first two games, you can expect a perfect game or at the very least a no-hitter from Beckett, who has not been himself for over a month.

Texas lost again last night so they're 6.5 games back in the wild card. Good night Rangers and thanks for playing.

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