This morning, the Red Sox are on the outside looking in at the 2008 postseason, victims of a 3-1, Game 7 Rays victory that dashed the Sox’ hopes of returning to the World Series and defending their 2007 championship.
Tampa Bay’s talented upstarts had twice tried and failed to keep the Red Sox out of the winner’s column in Games 5 and 6. But in their third and final stab at it they rallied from a 1-0 deficit and did not allow the Sox a chance to recover. But they came close.
The Red Sox put eight baserunners on in the final four innings without plating a single one. The Rays employed five pitchers in the eighth alone, when four Red Sox batters reached and none came around to score. J. D Drew struck out with the bases loaded against pitcher No. 5, rookie David Price.
Rays starter Matt Garza outpitched Jon Lester for the second time this series, earning himself ALCS MVP honors in the process. While Lester was much improved from his Game 3 effort, Garza dazzled, holding the Red Sox to just two hits and one run in his seven-plus innings. Lester, staked to a 1-0 lead after Pedroia’s first-inning home run, handed the Rays the lead in the fifth on Rocco Baldelli’s RBI single, which plated Willy Aybar. Aybar added some insurance in the seventh with a solo home run.
A constant refrain in the Red Sox clubhouse this year was what a grind the 2008 season had been, which can’t be denied given the short offseason following last year’s World Series drive and then the early start to the season because of the trip to Tokyo.
That, significant injuries to David Ortiz (wrist), Josh Beckett (back, elbow, oblique), Mike Lowell (left thumb, right hip) and J. D Drew (back) and the midseason distraction that led to the Manny Ramirez trade caused more than a few members of the organization to point out that perhaps the team was fortunate just to have arrived at a Game 7, one win away from the World Series.
Baseball…It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.” -Bart Giamatti
