AMERICAN LEAGUE
Jason Bay slid headfirst into home plate to score on Jed Lowrie’s two-out single in the ninth inning Monday as the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 and advanced to the American League Championship Series (ALCS) for the fourth time in six seasons.
The Red Sox brushed aside the 100-win Angels in four games of their AL Division Series.
PHOTO: AP
Boston, which also won it all in 2004, will have a chance at a third title in five years if they can get past the Rays in the best-of-seven ALCS that starts at Tampa Bay on Friday.
Boston is 31-16 in October since the turn of the century, and both World Series runs began with a playoff sweep of the Angels.
Los Angeles was able to force the series to a fourth game with an extra-inning victory on Sunday night that snapped an 11-game playoff losing streak against Boston.
PHOTO: AP
As it turned out, that gave them less than an 24 extra hours.
Jon Lester held the Angels to four hits in seven shutout innings but lost his chance at a second victory in the series when Los Angeles scored twice in the eighth to tie it 2-all.
The Angels had a chance to go ahead in the ninth before Erick Aybar, whose 12th-inning single was the winner in Game 3, missed on a suicide squeeze attempt, thwarting the threat.
PHOTO: AFP
In the bottom half, Bay lofted a fly ball down the right-field line that Reggie Willits pursued and dove for before it one-hopped into the stands for a ground-rule double. First baseman Mark Teixeira made a diving catch of Mark Kotsay’s line drive for the second out before Lowrie grounded a single to right.
Bay raced around third and slid headfirst into home while his teammates poured out of the dugout to celebrate.
RAYS 6, WHITE SOX 2
At Chicago, B.J. Upton homered twice, Andy Sonnanstine pitched a solid 5 2-3 innings and manager Joe Maddon’s surprising Rays wrapped up the best-of-five AL Division Series in four games — in their first trip to the playoffs. Next up, the Boston Red Sox starting on Friday.
After staving off elimination several times and winning a tiebreaker for the AL Central division title, the White Sox were finally knocked out.
Just days ago, Chicago fans were thinking the Cubs and White Sox might meet in a Windy City World Series. But the Cubs were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers and now both teams are done.
Upton, the game’s second batter, homered to left-center to put the Rays ahead. He went deep again in the third, driving a full-count pitch from Gavin Floyd to center, and the confident Rays had a two-run cushion. Tampa Bay increased the lead to 4-0 in the fourth when Carl Crawford walked and scored as veteran Cliff Floyd, a Chicago native, doubled to left. Dioner Navarro followed with an RBI single to finish Floyd.
Paul Konerko hit a solo homer for the White Sox in the bottom half and the white towel-waving crowd dressed in black had a reason to get excited. But Tampa Bay struck right back in the fifth against Clayton Richard as Akinori Iwamura singled and scored on Carlos Pena’s single that made it 5-1.
Jermaine Dye hit a solo home run in the sixth to finish Sonnanstine.
Sonnanstine, who reversed a late-season slide that saw him go winless in his final seven starts, allowed two runs and three hits before J.P Howell relieved. Grant Balfour completed the four-hitter, striking out Chicago’s midseason addition Ken Griffey Jr to end it.
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