In hindsight, it's easy to admit that for a brief period in the last decade we started to take playoff baseball for granted. The Red Sox were in the mix every season so actually getting there wasn't all that exciting (same deal with the Patriots, still). Well it's been four years since Boston has competed in the postseason and five years since they actually won a game. This is a long way of saying that tonight's instant classic 2-1 win by the Red Sox (83-57 overall, 46-25 home) over the Tigers (81-58 overall, 37-31 away) at Fenway Park felt like it took place in October rather than early September.
No doubt plenty will happen between now and then but it's not hard to imagine a repeat of this matchup in next month's ALCS. These look like the two best teams in the AL (and maybe MLB) so what a treat that would be for baseball fans. Jon Lester (13-8) pitched his best game of the season (7 innings, 1 earned run, 8 hits, 9 strikeouts, 0 walks) as he was able to outduel Max Scherzer (19-2; 7+ innings, 2 earned runs, 5 hits, 8 strikeouts, 3 walks) and also deny him his 20th win.
In such a long campaign, it's extremely rare that all the stars align and we get to witness an excellent regular season contest like this one turned out to be. Former Red Sox Jose Iglesias staked Detroit to a 1-0 lead with an RBI double in the second but the Tigers third base coach made the stupid decision to send their fat catcher Brayan Pena who was thrown out at home by a mile to end the inning.
Will Middlebrooks provided all the offense that Boston would need with a two-run single up the middle in the fifth that scored Jonny Gomes (2 hits) and Stephen Drew. Austin Jackson was 2 for 4 with a double and Omar Infante went 2 for 4 with a run. After missing the last three games with an abdominal issue, Miguel Cabrera returned to the lineup but went 0 for 4. No at bat was bigger for Lester than in the fifth when Cabrera came up with the bases loaded and two outs. Lester fell behind 2-and-0 to the best hitter on the planet but ended up getting him to ground out to shortstop.
Red Sox manager John Farrell broke this down like a playoff game, having Brandon Workman, Craig Breslow and Junichi Tazawa all get one out apiece in the eighth. That paved the way for who has quickly become one of the most effective closers in MLB: Koji Uehara. He nailed down his 17th save on nine pitches and remarkably he still struck out two batters including Iglesias to end it (delicious irony!).
You wish that this series could go on forever (relatively speaking) but sadly it at least temporarily has to end tomorrow night (7:10, NESN) with the D-squad showdown of Ryan Dempster (7-9) vs. Rick Porcello (11-7); get your bullpens ready because it should be a long evening.
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