They're shipping up to Boston (whoooooaaaaaaa)!

In the playoffs, things change quickly. The Sox rolled in game one vs. Cleveland and looked poised to win game two after Manny and Lowell went back-to-back. Things turned in game two as the Indians came back and finally won in 11 innings. They beat Dice-K on Monday and knocked around Wakefield and Delcarmen on Tuesday to go up three games to one.
I would have written a blog before last night's game but I forgot/didn't want to jinx things/was too depressed. Now, after watching Beckett pitch another gem, the series is coming back to Boston for the last two games (if necessary). After last night, I think you can say without a shadow of a doubt that Josh Beckett is the most dominant starting pitcher in baseball right now. It's not even close really. Who else is up there? Peavy, Webb, Zambrano, Hamels, Wang, Sabathia, Carmona? Those guys all had solid regular seasons but almost all of them have faltered in the playoffs while Beckett has been just filthy (1.17 ERA in three postseason starts). Don't forget, he was also the only 20-game winner in baseball this year. If he doesn't win the Cy Young this year, it's a joke.

Sabathia has had three straight bad starts in the playoffs (one against the Yankees and two vs. the Sox). What's the deal with him? Not a good clubhouse spread? Or maybe that's the problem, it's really good and he is daydreaming about all the food he is going to dominate when he hits the showers. Whatever the case, ole' C.C. hasn't done anything special when it's counted. He throws hard but he's lost his control and he also doesn't seem to have secondary pitches to lean on. Major league hitters will eventually catch up to a fastball, no matter how hard it is.
Youkilis got things started with a solo homer in the first but Cleveland came back with one in the bottom of the first to tie it up. It was the first time all series that the Sox had scored first. Still, things didn't look promising as the Sox couldn't get any bounces to go their way: Manny missed hitting another home run by inches and Lowell hit a sure double that just went foul. The Sox finally scored two in the top of the seventh off Sabathia, who was shaky all night but somehow managed to make it to the seventh. Pedroia hit a double then Youk got a triple that Sizemore and Gutierrez misplayed in the outfield. Boston added three in the eighth to make the final score, 7-1.

The key to game obviously was Beckett, who went eight innings and only allowed five hits while striking out 11-which tied a playoff career high. The other most important factor was that Pedroia had two hits and Youk had two hits while Kielty, Varitek, Lugo and Drew all had a hit. Our lineup had been seriously exposed in the series as nobody outside of Youk, Ortiz, Manny or Lowell-to a lesser degree-could do anything. Drew, Crisp, Lugo and Varitek have pretty much been automatic outs. The media and fans freaked out about Francona pitching Dice-K (who had no shot) in game 4 over Beckett. The other main concern was not shaking up the lineup which had completely fallen apart. Ellsbury had played so well in limited time, why not throw him in there? He's not much of a drop-off defensively from Coco.

We'll have to wait and see 'til game six if stubbornly loyal Tito changes anything. It's Schilling against Carmona on Saturday night (a rematch of game 2) at Fenway. Should be a classic. Schilling didn't have much last time out so odds are that won't happen again. Oddly enough, you'd have to say the pressure lies on the Indians now. They're a great team and they proved that by jumping out the 3-1 lead. However, you get the feeling that they were playing over their heads a bit during the three game win-streak while the Sox were barely treading water. We're not unbeatable but I think we resemble last night's performance more than the garbage on display in game 3 and 4. The bottom line is that the Sox need a starting pitcher other than Beckett to last longer than 4.2 innings. If we can decent outings out of Schilling and Dice-K (holding my breath) in a possible game seven, then you have to like our chances. No question, Cleveland did not want to come back to Fenway for another game(s). Tomorrow night should be fun, first pitch is at 8:21 pm.