Red Sox 2, Rays 0
By Dave Sheinin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 11, 2008
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Oct. 10 -- By midway through the bottom of the first inning, surely they were running through complex bullpen scenarios on the Boston Red Sox' bench, so awful was the start to Daisuke Matsuzaka's night, so tenuous were his chances of getting even three outs. By the start of the seventh, they were digging up grainy photos of Don Larsen in newsrooms and TV control rooms across the land, so complete was Matsuzaka's recovery and so near was he to making history.
And by the end of the night, across Red Sox Nation, they were merely settling for the warm comfort of a well-pitched game from the Red Sox' enigmatic Japanese import -- who carried a no-hitter into the seventh and departed in the eighth having given up four hits -- plus a hard-won 2-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.
Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis had three hits, the last of which, a double off the glove of Rays left fielder Carl Crawford in the eighth, drove in Boston's second run and gave the Red Sox' bullpen a bit more breathing room. Three relievers followed Matsuzaka to the mound, capped by closer Jonathan Papelbon, who pitched a perfect ninth for the save.
The Rays, the upstarts champions of the AL East in the 11th season of an otherwise awful existence, have now seen their ace, James Shields, beaten on their home turf by arguably the Red Sox' third-best starter, and in the next two games will be facing the most accomplished postseason pitcher of his generation (Josh Beckett) and the most overpowering lefty in the league (Jon Lester).
"You're sick to your stomach," Rays designated hitter Cliff Floyd said. "We don't like to lose at home."
By this deep into October, the Red Sox are used to playing their postseason road games in the grand old stadiums of the East, such as Yankee Stadium (may it rest in peace), or the old-school baseball towns of the Midwest, like Cleveland or St. Louis. There is supposed to be a cold, black sky lit by stadium lights, a chill in the air.
Instead, on Friday night, the Red Sox found themselves on baseball's equivalent of Mars. A rabid crowd of 35,001 screamed and rang cowbells. Music blared from the loudspeakers at any pause in the action, no matter how brief. Above was a backdrop of dull gray, ringed by concentric catwalks (labeled A, B, C and D, each governed by its own ground rule) -- the roof of Tropicana Field's dome. But if the atmosphere was supposed to fluster the Red Sox, perhaps it had unintended consequences for the home team.
"I saw faces tonight [on the Rays' players] that were different than I saw in the regular season," Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz said. "There's a lot of pressure. . . . That relaxed feeling you have during the regular season is not there. I'm not saying anyone is scared, but when its your first time in the playoffs you put a little pressure on yourself."
In Matsuzaka, a $103.1 million extravagance the Red Sox obtained before the 2007 season, Rays fans could see the epitome of the financial disparity between the franchises, expressed most simply through the roughly $100 million difference in their respective payrolls this season.
Matsuzaka's 2008 season must have been the most suspect, least impermeable 18-win, sub-3.00-ERA campaign in history, full of high pitch-counts and low innings-counts, as well as a league-leading 94 walks issued. His survival was predicated largely on a .164 opponents' batting average with runners in scoring position, lowest in the majors.
"When Daisuke is pitching, at some point you run out of patience," Ortiz said. "He won 18 games this year. I don't know how he does it, but he does it."
He began Friday night at his maddening, inefficient best/worst, walking the bases loaded between a pair of outs, only to extricate himself delicately. He mixed in only 12 strikes among his 27 pitches in the inning.
"I had a tough time getting going," Matsuzaka said through an interpreter.
Presumably, someone said something to him between innings -- tongue-lashings typically require no translation -- because he was a different pitcher from then on, beginning with a three-strike dismissal of Dioner Navarro to open the second. From the second through the sixth inning, Matsuzaka needed only 16, 16, 10, 10 and 10 pitches.
"He went against his norm," Floyd said. "He usually pitches backward [by throwing breaking and off-speed pitches early in the count], but he went to his fastball. We hadn't seen that from him before."
Matsuzaka still had a no-hitter entering the seventh, and more importantly a 1-0 lead, but Crawford drilled a single into right field -- at which point Larsen, whose 1956 perfect game remains the only no-hitter in postseason history, breathed a sigh of relief -- and moved to third on Floyd's single to left-center.
With double-barreled action in the Red Sox' bullpen, Manager Terry Francona not only stuck with Matsuzaka -- who wiggled out of the jam on a shallow fly ball, a strikeout and a harmless grounder to short -- but also sent him back out for the eighth having already thrown 107 pitches.
Two batters in, the Rays had runners at first and second after a pair of well-struck singles, and Francona finally yanked his starter. Lefty Hideki Okajima entered to retire Carlos Peña on a fly ball to shallow right -- on a 3-0 pitch -- and rookie right-hander Justin Masterson coaxed Evan Longoria into an inning-ending, 6-4-3 double-play, the first turned by the Red Sox this postseason.
Matsuzaka had not only survived; he had delivered a big October victory. You can forgive a lot of tedious midseason performances and a lot of needlessly messy innings for that.
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