Cleveland Wins, Takes 3-1 Lead Over Boston in ALCS
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Cleveland batted for 35 minutes in the 5th inning, lighting up the scoreboard in a 7 run explosion after Boston’s Tim Wakefield and Cleveland’s Paul Byrd had dueled tossing shutout ball at each other for the first 4 innings.
Boston then responded by leading off the 6th inning with back-to-back-to-back solo homers by 1st baseman Kevin Youkilis, dh David Ortiz and leftfielder Manny Ramirez, the first two off of Byrd and the third off of rookie reliever Jensen Lewis. But that was all the offense the Red Sox could muster for the game as Cleveland won by a 7-3 score to take a commanding 3 games to 1 lead in the ALCS.
AP sports writer Tom Withers recaps the game and gives background for Yahoo sports;
Led by a throwback pitcher who looks as if he stepped out of their 1948 team photo, the Cleveland Indians moved one win from another crack at winning an elusive World Series title.
Pumping his arms with an old-school windup, Paul Byrd blanked Boston long enough and Casey Blake homered to start Cleveland’s seven-run rampage in the fifth inning…
Byrd found his unique windup almost by accident. Following shoulder surgery in 2002, he began swinging his arms, hoping the momentum it created might give him more velocity. After trying it out during batting practice, a few teammates told him they had a hard time picking up the ball.
That’s all he needed to hear.
Against the Red Sox, he even double-pumped a few times — once on a strikeout pitch to Ortiz.
“We want to put them away here,” Byrd said as Indians fans kept rocking after the final out. “That’s a great team over there. They can easily come back and win three. We’re taking absolutely nothing for granted. We’ll enjoy the win for now, but we want to put them away at home in front of these great fans.”
The Indians, who knocked out the New York Yankees and their monstrous payroll in the first round of the playoffs, now have the free-spending Red Sox on the ropes. Even three straight homers couldn’t rally Boston.
Blake homered leading off the fifth [inning] against Boston’s knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who… had Cleveland’s hitters swinging at air for nearly four innings.
But in the fifth, helped by a dropped foul pop and a ball seemingly destined for an inning-ending double play that tipped off Wakefield’s glove, the Indians blew it open by hanging a seven spot on the scoreboard — just as they did in the 11th inning at Fenway Park to win Game 2.
Blake, Cleveland’s clutch third baseman who has hit several big homers this season, drilled an 0-1 pitch onto the home-run porch in left, a shot that seemed to awaken the Indians’ bats.
“I just didn’t want to look like an idiot,” Blake said. “I got lucky there, hit one on the barrel and that got us going.”
Franklin Gutierrez followed with a single and Wakefield plunked Kelly Shoppach. A groundout moved up Gutierrez, and Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a foul pop toward the photographer’s pit next to Boston’s dugout.
Youkilis, the first baseman, seemed to have it under control, but the ball squirted from his glove. Cabrera then hit a liner — a possible double-play ball — that Wakefield deflected and trickled behind the mound.
Wakefield struck out Travis Hafner, but Victor Martinez’s RBI single made it 3-0. That chased Wakefield, who lasted 4 2-3 innings — the third straight Red Sox starter to last exactly that long, all of them done after a Martinez single.
“You can’t go to the bullpen in the fifth inning three games in a row,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.
The down time seemed to hurt Byrd, who gave up back-to-back homers in a seven-pitch span to Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz to open the sixth before Indians manager Eric Wedge rescued him.
As Byrd walked to the dugout in favor of rookie Jensen Lewis, Cleveland’s towel-twirling fans saluted the 36-year-old…
Lewis gave up a homer to Manny Ramirez, who posed to admire his 451-foot shot, as the Red Sox became the first team in ALCS history to hit three straight homers.
They came too late as the Red Sox missed a chance to even the series and now must hope they can conjure up some of their 2004 magic when they came back from an 0-3 deficit.
A victory in Game 5 on Thursday night would send Cleveland back to the World Series for the first time since 1997, when the Indians lost a seven-game thriller to the Florida Marlins.
The amazing Colorado Rockies — are patiently waiting for an opponent.
And it just might be the Indians, who haven’t won a world championship since ‘48, when they beat the Boston Braves. Cleveland’s 59-year drought is only eclipsed by the Chicago Cubs, those lovable losers whose futility now extends to 99 years this fall after an early-October flame out.
These Indians are burning brightly.
“The scene switched in a blink,” Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia said. “Everything is kind of slipping away, but we’re still playing. If we don’t win, we go home. We’ve got to get to the ballpark and get a win.”
For the boxscores and recap on Tuesday’s game, click here.
Boston and Cleveland have the day off on Wednesday before returning to action on Thursday in Cleveland as the Indians look to wrap up the ALCS in game 5 while Boston tries to stay alive. Josh Beckett once again opposes CC Sabathia.
For the boxscores and recap on Thursday’s game, click here.
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