As Tito said earlier this week, good pitching keeps you in the game so you get a chance to win. That's exactly what Josh Beckett did for 8 innings. He threw a career high 125 pitches & eeked out one last inning in the 8th to save the bullpen for later in the game. He also kept his team in the game while they stranded 16 of 18 runners. Beckett has turned the clock back in recent starts, looking like the Josh Beckett of 2007. It's ashame that he didn't get the win.
Meanwhile, I shut the game off after 10 innings because it looked like Red Sox & Angels hitters had holes in their bats. Lots of swings & misses. Lots of poor swings a la J.D. Drew with the bases loaded in the 9th. Even the Angels, usually a sound team fundamentally, made a huge baserunning miscue by having Eric Aybar get thrown out at third to start the 9th. It seemed like neither team wanted to win.
But Adrian Gonzalez delivered a double into the corner in the 11th scoring the winning run to seal the Sox win, the 5th out of their last 6 games. At that point you have to think that probability or chance was on their side after going 1 for 17 with RISP. We'll take it.
This game #1 win of the 4-game set is a huge road win & puts the Sox in good position to take or split the series in Anaheim.
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