Resurgence
| Game 148: September 13, 2008 | |||
| Blue Jays | 5 | H: Jesse Carlson (17) H: Brandon League (4) BS, L: Scott Downs (4, 0-3) |
80-69, 1 game losing streak |
 Red Sox |
7 | W: Justin Masterson (6-4) S: Jonathan Papelbon (37) |
87-61, 1 game winning streak |
| Highlights: Boston enjoyed their third eighth-inning comeback this season in the second game of yesterday’s day-night doubleheader. Tampa Bay also split their doubleheader with the Yankees, so this win was key in keeping the Red Sox within breathing distance of the AL East leaders. | |||
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who held their breath with Jonathan Papelbon on the mound even though he was facing the lower end of the Blue Jays’ lineup. Lyle Overbay turned over on the first fastball he saw and grounded out to Dustin Pedroia, so the first out came easily enough. Red Sox fans’ respiration was partially restored.
Sophomore Adam Lind proved to be a tougher out. Papelbon started him off with a couple of fastballs and then altered his approach with breaking pitches every two fastballs. Lind stubbornly fouled off five of the seven pitches he saw, but the variations undid Lind, who went down swinging.
Against Scott Rolen the closer went for brute force. Papelbon fed him cheese until the hoary third baseman took a nibble on a high pitch and dribbled it to Jed Lowrie for the final out.
Papelbon’s 1-2-3 inning sealed a comeback win that had his team trailing from the second inning forward. Bartolo Colon had a rough go of it early: he walked in a run, allowed the tying and go-ahead runs on a double by Joe Inglett, surrendered a sacrifice fly by Marco Scutaro, and ceded a bloop RBI single to Alex Rios.
After that inning, the Blue Jays seemed content to sit on their lead. If they didn’t go down 1-2-3 (as they four times), they were grounding into double plays (three times).
Boston’s defense played well behind Colon by turning these twin killings, errors by Lowrie and Kevin Youkilis aside. Colon helped himself in the fifth by gloving a grounder up the middle backhanded; he nonchalantly reached down as Rios’s batted ball hit the back of shin and ended up in his glove. Even before relaying to Youkilis he smiled Sphinx-like at his middle infielders. “Hey, Ma, look what I found!”
In the dugout Colon reclined, recounting his feat to Sean Casey and David Ortiz with blasé. Odd to think that the difference between the division title and wild card, or the wild card and playoffs, may rest on the shoulders of castoffs like Paul Byrd and Colon.
Lowrie must have been tired off seeing Travis Snider prowling right field. In the fourth Snider snatched away a homer on an impressive play at the bullpen wall, but Lowrie repaid him with a sacrifice fly to right in the sixth. That was the only run eked out of that inning despite having the bases juiced with none out.
Boston chipped away at the bedrock of Toronto’s team, their solid pitching staff. Jacoby Ellsbury led off the seventh with a double, but he would score on a ground out and a force out.
In the bottom of the eighth the local nine surged ahead. The crowd’s a cappella “Sweet Caroline” was particularly stirring and the team carried that passion to the plate. Ellsbury’s swinging bunt single to plate Lowrie notched the go-ahead run. Pedroia followed with a single, his 200th hit of the season, which allowed Ortiz to smack a double for an insurance run.
It was a, dare I say, Rays-like win, something Boston may need more of to keep pace.
