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Aybar's Single in 12th Lifts Angels Past Red Sox
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Saunders breezed through the first five outs, toeing the far right edge of the rubber as his smooth wind-up delivery relieved batter after batter. Then he sandwiched walks to Lowrie and Coco Crisp around a Varitek single. With two outs, all Saunders needed was a popup, and he got it on his seventh pitch to Jacoby Ellsbury.
He pointed his left hand to the sky, turned and waited. Each of the three Red Sox base runners had taken off before Saunders released his 3-2 pitch to the plate and were circling toward home. That didn't seem to concern the Angels' southpaw, though. Surely, one of the three Los Angeles fielders ranging toward the descending ball would nab it. Inning over. Scoring threat extinguished.
And then, one by one, Saunders's lieutenants stood down. Aybar slowed to a trot. Second baseman Howie Kendrick came to halt. And center fielder Torii Hunter watched Ellsbury's three-run single drop right in front of him.
Saunders's left hand crammed down upon his cap and his face scrunched. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first three-run single in postseason history. Saunders left after 4 2/3 innings of work, having allowed five hits and four runs.
Four hours before first pitch, a handful of Red Sox fans lined up outside the will-call window near Gate A. They had tickets for Game 4, they said. How should they go about trading them in for American League Championship Series stubs, they wondered.
For a franchise that went 86 years in between World Series titles before claiming two in the past four seasons, the first two wins of this first-round matchup against the team with the best 2008 regular season record in baseball came almost too smoothly. Poised to watch their Sox sweep the Angels for the third time in as many postseason meetings, Boston fans allowed their collective hubris to swell.
Matters were similarly off-kilter on the field. Lowell, who sat out Game 2 to rest a right hip injury, gingerly planted off his right foot on throws all night. When Juan Rivera struck out in the fifth, Varitek began the around-the-horn toss to Lowell, who then bounced his throw to Lowrie into left field.
Indeed, nothing seemed quite right Sunday night at Fenway Park.
