September 21, 2007
...
There were a couple of boxed bottles of Dom Perignon in Josh
Beckett's cubicle in the visitors' clubhouse at Tropicana Field.
Before he left, he tucked one under his arm when Beckett won his 20th
game tonight. In the moment of his defining triumph, Joshua Patrick
Beckett becoming the first major league pitcher this season to win
20, the first to do so since 2005, and Boston's 15th pitcher to do so
since 1950.
On a night
the Sox needed him to be everything a 20-game winner is supposed to represent,
to set their tottering world right again, the 6-foot-5-inch right-hander from
Spring, Texas, delivered. Beckett held the Devil Rays to one run in six innings
while the Sox scratched out enough offense against Devil Rays ace Scott Kazmir
to give him a 3-1 lead, until the big bats thundered late against the Devil Rays
bullpen.
For the Sox,
this was a night, after four straight losses matched by four straight Yankee
wins, comprised of equal parts exultation and exhalation. The news became even
better just before midnight, when the Yankees fell in 14 innings to Toronto,
dropping the Bombers 2 1/2 games behind the Sox in the AL East Division race.
If the Sox
extend their season into October, said Mike Lowell, whose 20th home run followed
on the heels of David Ortiz's three-run shot, his 32d, in the ninth, he sees no
reason the Sox should refrain from celebrating, even if the division title is
unresolved. Ortiz, who insisted manager Terry Francona put his name on the
lineup card against Kazmir even though the plan was to rest his aching knee,
responded with three hits and four RBIs, is among those who wave off the
importance of winning the division.
Beckett is
20-6, the first pitcher since 2005 to win 20. He is 7-1 in his last eight
decisions, and has won his last four in succession. And his record after a Sox
defeat is 10-3, a number that may most vividly define his value to the Sox this
season, a role the last Boston 20-game winner, Schilling, filled so splendidly
in 2004.
With the Sox
reeling after four straight losses, Beckett was given a 1-0 lead in the first
when Jacoby Ellsbury grounded a double down the right-field line, was bunted to
third by Dustin Pedroia, and scored when Rays catcher Dioner Navarro tried to
pick him off third with Ortiz at the plate.
But Beckett
labored in the first, throwing 34 pitches while the Rays scored the equalizer on
a couple of walks and a double by Delmon Young, Tampa Bay's Rookie of the Year
candidate. But the last spot of trouble Beckett faced came in the third, when he
gave up two-out singles to B.J. Upton and Young. Jonny Gomes bounced into a
force play to end the inning, and Beckett did not allow another base runner
before leaving after six. Beckett struck out five of the last nine batters he
faced, eight in all, and profited from a daring catch by Ellsbury, who flew into
the visitors' bullpen-which is along the left-field line - and stumbled over one
of the mounds, but somehow kept his eye on the ball and his glove in place to
snare Greg Norton's foul liner, avoiding crashing into a folding chair in the
process.
That was not
the team's only brush with potential harm. Kazmir hit Eric Hinske and Varitek
with pitches, and reliever Jeff Ridgway clipped Pedroia after walking Ellsbury,
moments before Ortiz unloaded with his 32d home run of the season. Earlier,
Ortiz had singled home a run in Boston's two-run third (the other run scoring on
a wild pitch by Kazmir) and he also beat out an infield nubber fielded by
Kazmir. Delcarmen (four outs) and Lopez (two) served as the bridge to the ninth,
when the Sox broke it open. Mop-up duty fell to Eric Gagne.
The
scoreboard, meanwhile, concealed the fact that Sox batters whiffed 17 times, a
matter of little consequence when the other team scored seven fewer runs.
Beckett had his win, and his champagne. And Lowell became the first Sox third
baseman to hit 20-plus home runs in consecutive seasons. He took some pride in
that, more so because he doesn't fashion himself a home run hitter.
