The haunting, gray skies above Fenway Park matched the pensive mood of most of the Red Sox fans who came here one more time in hopes that it would not be the final time this season. The Red Sox had to win to keep their season breathing, to have a chance of keeping the magic of 2004 alive for at least another day.
But the magic faded for this fragile team and this immediately despondent city as the Chicago White Sox beat Boston 5-3 to sweep their AL division series 3-0 and advance to the AL Championship Series. One year after the Red Sox won the World Series title and forever ended the chants of "1918," their hopes died quickly.
After ending their Series drought last October, the Red Sox trudge into a disappointing winter with the same feelings they have now had after 86 of the past 87 seasons. Wait until next year, the Red Sox and their fans were forced to utter on a black Friday night. The pain was still raw.
PHOTO: AP
Orlando Hernandez, the former Yankee who treats October baseball as if it is being played in his backyard -- with his bat, his ball and his glove -- smothered the Red Sox. He came into a bases-loaded, no-out situation in the sixth inning and sneaked out of it. He protected the one-run lead, then sprinted off the mound shouting and pumping his fist.
Because Hernandez was his usual gutsy self and because Paul Konerko's two-run homer in the top of the sixth broke a 2-2 tie and showed that the White Sox were not baffled by Tim Wakefield's knuckleballs, the White Sox have become the 2005 version of the Red Sox as a team chasing history. The White Sox snared their first postseason series victory since 1917 and will try to snare their first title since that year of the Russian Revolution, too.
"We're not happy," Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon said. "We felt like we had a good-enough team this season to win it all. We got to the playoffs, which is the first step. We just couldn't put anything together in this series."
After Manny Ramirez's second home run off Freddie Garcia sliced Chicago's lead to 4-3 in the sixth inning, manager Ozzie Guillen summoned Damaso Marte. Marte had a disastrous outing, allowing a single by Trot Nixon and walking Bill Mueller and John Olerud to fill the bases. Guillen hustled out of the dugout to ask Hernandez, who was dropped from the starting rotation and almost did not make the playoff roster, to rescue the White Sox. Somehow, he did, and he did it with style.
Hernandez, known as El Duque, was always one of those pitchers who became better as the games became more intense. But he was only 9-9 with a 5.12 earned run average in the regular season, so there was no guarantee that he would come close to being the same pitcher who was 9-3 with a 2.65 ERA in his postseason career.
Perhaps Hernandez was not the same pitcher. Maybe he was better. He reached 93 miles an hour with his fastball and got Jason Varitek to foul out. Tony Graffanino fought him through a classic 10-pitch at-bat before he popped out to the infield. Finally, Damon, who had a .421 lifetime average against Hernandez, struck out swinging on a 3-2 slider.
"He did not really throw hittable pitches," Graffanino said. "He went through Tek, me and Johnny. We gave him a fight. Even 3-2, he was throwing slow curves. That's tough right there. That's a guy who's a big-game pitcher who made big-game pitches."
Hernandez pitched two more scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out four, to keep Guillen from taking the white towel from his shoulder and using it to cover his eyes. Hernandez took the baseballs he used to record the final outs in those innings back to the dugout. He knew how significant this was and obviously wanted souvenirs.
Wakefield hit Scott Podsednik and Carl Everett with knucklers in the first and second innings, although it looked as if the pitch breezed past Everett. But Podsednik was thrown out trying to steal second, and a double play erased Everett.
Nixon made a sliding catch in right field to start the third, then shortstop Edgar Renteria glided into the hole for an out. Had Boston not made those plays, the inning could have been a fiasco because Wakefield's consistency with the knuckler vanished.
Wakefield fell behind by 2-0 to Juan Uribe, then Uribe belted the next pitch off the wall in left field for a double. Wakefield also started with a 2-0 count on Podsednik, who laced a 2-1 pitch to left for a run-scoring double and a 1-0 White Sox lead. Tadahito Iguchi then slapped Wakefield's first pitch to center to drive in Podsednik.
In the fourth, the Red Sox finally showed a spark. David Ortiz hammered a home run to center field and Ramirez sliced one inside the right-field foul pole. When Ortiz and Ramirez did not hit late in the season, the Red Sox usually did not win. They combined for three homers in Game 3, but all were hit with the bases empty.
Wakefield allowed base runners in every inning and showed how delicate a position the Red Sox were in trusting their season to the unpredictable dancing and diving of a knuckleball. He walked Jermaine Dye to open the sixth, then Konerko pounded a shot over the Green Monster to put Chicago in front for good, 4-2.
As the Red Sox tried to nudge their season into Saturday and beyond, two fans held signs in right field that read "Keep the Faith" and "Believe." The Red Sox wanted to keep the faith and they wanted to believe, but for the 86th time in 87 seasons, they will have to wait until next year.
Angels 11, Yankees 7
The Yankees were built on the theory that an ace pitcher could shepherd a team of stars through October. Randy Johnson did his part in the regular season, helping carry the Yankees to a hard-fought American League East title. But the dominant Johnson was missing in Game 3 of the division series Friday night, and now the Yankees are on the brink of elimination.
Johnson was awful at a soggy Yankee Stadium, and unless the Yankees rally for victories the next two days against the feisty Los Angeles Angels, their season will be over.
Johnson could not get an out in the fourth inning, leaving too much of the game for the middle relievers to absorb. Two thunderous innings from the Yankees' offense were not enough to stop the Angels, who spanked the Yankees, 11-7, to take a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-five series.
"Even when we were behind, we thought we could come back," said Derek Jeter, who homered in the eighth inning for the Yankees. "But we just couldn't hold them. To try to come back, you've got to be able to shut the other team down."
The Angels had 19 hits, including four by Garret Anderson, who ripped a three-run homer in the first inning and drove in five runs. The Yankees had not allowed so many hits in the postseason since allowing 22 in a 15-2 loss to Arizona in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series. Their dynasty expired the next night, and they have never quite recovered.
Johnson, who was brought to New York to give the Yankees an edge in the postseason, gave up as many hits, nine, as he got outs. The Angels scored five runs against Johnson, who left with his team trailing, 5-0.
"If I would have paid a ticket to watch me pitch, I probably would have booed me, too," said Johnson, who made the shortest postseason start of his career. "They've come to expect a little more out of me. I've come to expect more out of myself."
The Yankees quickly rallied for six runs over the fourth and fifth innings, but the Angels scored the next six runs, going ahead on Chone Figgins' single against Aaron Small in the sixth. Small, who was 10-0 in the regular season, lost for the first time as a Yankee.
Essentially, the game came down to this: After both starters left early, the Angels' bullpen was far better. While the Yankees struggled to hold down the Angels, Scot Shields, Kelvim Escobar and Francisco Rodriguez all but throttled the Yankees.
For the Yankees to survive the first round, they would have to win Game 4 on Saturday at Yankee Stadium and Game 5 on Sunday in Anaheim, Calif.
"We'll see what we're made of," Alex Rodriguez said. "I still think we're the best team in baseball."
Former New York Mets player Matt Franco drove in the winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning Saturday to lift the Chiba Lotte Marines to a 2-1 win over the Seibu Lions in the opening game of the Pacific League's first-stage playoff.
Franco's single to center at Chiba Marine Stadium allowed Kazuya Fukuura to score from third with the winning run as Bobby Valentine's team took the first game of the three-game series.
Lotte starter Shunsuke Watanabe picked up the win after holding the Lions to one run on six hits over seven innings. Masahide Kobayashi retired the side in the ninth for the save.
Seibu starter Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched a strong game, giving up one run on five hits over seven innings. Reliever Koji Mitsui took the loss after giving up the winning run in the eighth.
Takumi Kuriyama hit a solo homer to right in the first at-bat of the game to give the Lions an early lead. Lotte tied the game in the bottom of the fifth on a sacrifice fly to left by infielder Koichi Hori.
The Marines finished second in the Pacific League standings with an 84-49-3 record, 4-1/2 games behind the Softbank Hawks, who will play the winner of this playoff for the right to advance to the Japan Series against the Central League champion Hanshin Tigers.
Lotte is making its first postseason appearance since 1974 when they were known as the Lotte Orions.
The Lions, who had a sub-.500 record in the regular season and finished third, are making their second straight postseason appearance. They finished second last year and defeated the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in three games in the first-stage playoffs before downing the Hawks in the second stage.
Seibu defeated the Central League champion Chunichi Dragons in seven games last season to win the Japan Series.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
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