ALCS 5: Red Sox 7, Spiders 1

Red Sox - 101 000 230 - 7 12  1
Spiders - 100 000 000 - 1  6  1
  
Beckett: 8-5-1-1-11, 109

Beckett was absolutely amazing tonight -- everything we could have hoped for -- near Pedro-esque in his ability to toy with the Cleveland hitters! Along with a fastball sitting at 95-97 all night long, he also used a devastating 12-to-6 curve that made more than one Spider look like a fool. In the post-season, he now has a BB/K ratio if 1/26.

A Yook dong gave the Red Sox a 1-0 lead in the first, but Cleveland tied the game in the home half. Sizemore doubled, moved to third on Cabrera's single and scored on Hafner's GIDP. After that, only one other Cleveland batter touched second base -- and that was in the ninth inning against Jonathan Papelbon.

Manny was robbed of a two-run dong to right-center in the third, but he did get an RBI out of it -- Boston led 2-1. They held on and broke it open with two in the seventh -- Pedroia double, Youilis triple, Ortiz sac fly -- and three in the eighth -- three walks, an error, a bunt single and another sac fly.

So it's back to Boston for Game 6 and G38 on Saturday night.


***

Manny: I'm a bad, bad man, man ...
Josh: [must ignore, keep staring straight ahead]

Kevin Youkilis:

I feel like we're going to win and take it back to Boston and play another day. When you see something's that never been done before, you can believe in anything.

Jason Varitek:

There's a faith. It's like being able to come back late in a game. You have people that have done it, the team has done it, and done it on different occasions. You should have confidence that it can be done.

Mike Lowell:

We just have to win [tonight].

Yerry Francona:

Just play the game that's in front of us.

Jacoby Ellsbury:

This team is so loose. That's baseball. We happened to lose three in a row, but we could just as well win three in a row, too. ... Even though we're down, I still think we're set up pretty good.

Yook also echoed Manny Ramirez's thoughts:

You have to have the same mind-set every day in big games. You can't change things. You can try to make adjustments pitch to pitch, but you can't change your approach ... You have to stay calm and collected and you have to have fun. You have to have that energy flowing and be excited to go up there.

***

Josh Beckett / C.C. Sabathia

One. One game. One win. That's all.

Not three, not two.

One.

Tonight.

It's pretty clear.