Lackey strong in Pitching Battle; Sox take 2-1 Series Advantage in ALCS

The first two games of the ALCS came were each decided by 1 run, so it’s no surprise that game 3 came down to the wire as well. John Lackey held the Tigers to just 4 hits, and kept the Tigers off the scoreboard through 6 2/3 innings pitched, and Mike Napoli hit a tie breaking solo home run in the top of the 7th against Justin Verlander, which proved to be the deciding blow in a 1-0 Red Sox victory.

The Sox secured the victory with solid pitching performances from the relievers who took over for Lackey. Craig Breslow, Junichi Tazawa, and Koji Uehara combined for 3 1/3 scoreless innings pitched to close out the Tigers.

For Boston’s bullpen, their biggest inning came in the bottom of the 8th. Ahead 1-0, Craig Breslow, who took over for Lackey with 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th inning, surrendered a one out walk to Austin Jackson.

Junichi Tazawa got the call to face Torii Hunter, who hit a single to put runners on 1st and 3rd with just one out, and Miguel Cabrera stepping to the plate. Tazawa kept pitches hard and away from Cabrera, it’s hard not to hold your breath on every pitch when he’s at the plate, but Tazawa got him swinging on the 4th pitch of the at-bat.

"The eighth inning, Taz, that was huge," catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia said. "Cabrera's such a great hitter. One out, those are situations he thrives in. He gets in situations where he can get an RBI and it's tough to get him out, let alone strike him out."

With two outs and Prince Fielder, John Farrell called on his closer, Koji Uehara, to get the four-out save. Uehara punched out Fielder on 3 pitches to end the 8th inning threat. He proceeded to close down the Tigers in the 9th inning, erasing a lead off single by Victor Martinez when he got Johnny Peralta to ground into a double, and struck out Mike Avila for the final out.

Mike Napoli had been 2-for-19 in October with 10 strikeouts before stepping to the plate in the top of the 7th inning with the bases empty, and had already been fanned twice in his first two at-bats against Verlander. Still, he hit Justin Verlander’s 100th pitch of the outing into the bullpen in left field to put the Red Sox up 1-0.

Despite pitching 120 pitch, 10 strikeout performance in which Verlander only surrendered 1 run and 4 hits through 8 innings, he couldn’t get the win. Apart from the single blemish to Napoli, Verlander looked like Verlander: lights out. However, he was out-dueled by John Lackey of the Boston Red Sox, who was not the starter people were talking about as the two teams entered tonight’s game.

Lackey gave up two hits in the 1st inning, and was leaving pitches up in the zone. But following a blackout which interrupted play for 17 minutes at Comerica Park, Lackey settled down nicely, and his curve was filthy. Lackey put up some impressive numbers as well, going 6.2 innings giving up just 4 hits, no walks, with 8 strikeouts, but more importantly, zero runs allowed.

Lackey got out of a jam in the 5th inning, when Johnny Peralta hit a leadoff double and advanced to 3rd base on a fly out to right by Mike Avila. With one out and the go-ahead run at 3rd base, Lackey got Omar Infante to fish for a curve out of the zone after a long at bat for strike three and the 2nd out of the inning, followed by a soft groundout by Andy Dirks to end the inning.

"There was a lot talk coming into tonight's game about Verlander's stuff, [he’s] a competitor... but let's go ahead and grab the other side, what John Lackey did to the Detroit Tigers," Johnny Gomes said after the game. "Then adding on with our bullpen. Verlander pitched an outstanding game. We touched it once and they didn't touch it at all."

For the Red Sox offense, the game started much like games 1 and 2. They were held hitless through 4 2/3 before Johnny Gomes beat out a slow chopper to Johnny Peralta for an infield single. The only big inning the Sox have really put together in three games has been the bottom of the 8th in game 2, when Big Papi hit a game tying grand slam against Joaquin Benoit. However the Sox find themselves up 2-1 in the series because they continue to grind down Detroit’s starting pitching, despite not producing against them.

In game 1 the Sox got their first hit in the 9th inning and had nothing to show for it; in game 2, David Ortiz delivered a timely hit to give the Sox life before ultimately winning the game in the bottom of the 9th; in game 3, it was Mike Napoli delivering a big hit, and John Lackey and the Sox bullpen shutting the Tigers down. The message to take from this if you are the Red Sox is: if you can give yourself a chance against the Tigers bullpen, you can win the game. Can Boston expect their starters to out-perform Detroit’s starters the way Lackey did Verlander in game 3? One thing is certain, the ALCS has the makings of a long, tight series.