Red Sox clips Angels’ wings

BOSTON—The Boston Red Sox brushed aside the 100-win Angels in four games—dismissing their best-in-baseball regular season as last month’s news.
When it turns to October, no one dominates like Boston.

Jason Bay of Trail, B.C. scored with a head-first slide on Jed Lowrie’s two-out single in the ninth inning as the defending World Series champions took advantage of a botched suicide squeeze, beating L.A. 3-2 last night to win their first-round playoff series in four games.
Boston, which also won it all in 2004, will have a chance at a third title in five years if it can get past the Rays in the best-of-seven AL championship series that starts Friday night at Tampa Bay.
“That’s what this team is about, especially the last few years,” said Lowrie, a rookie who was called up as a mid-season replacement when shortstop Julio Lugo was injured.
“It’s October, they’ve won a lot of games, and to be a part of that is awesome.”
The AL’s youngest team, Tampa Bay had never finished better than last in the division and posted the worst record in baseball last year while Boston, one of the league’s charter members, was winning its seventh championship.
But in just 11 years, the Rays and Red Sox have become fierce rivals, with the latest bench-clearing brawl coming at Fenway Park in June.
“I can’t wait to get it going,” pitcher Josh Beckett said. “But we’ve got a few days off to enjoy this.”
L.A. was able to force the series to a fourth game with an extra-inning victory Sunday night that snapped an 11-game playoff losing streak against Boston.
As it turned out, that gave the Angels less than an 24 extra hours.
“Those guys have certainly, in the last three series that we’ve been involved with them, they’ve beaten us,” Angels’ manager Mike Scioscia said. “I thought we played much better this series than going back to ’04 or ’07 against them.
“It’s naturally disappointing,” he added. “But we’re going to have to keep trying to get better. That’s all we can do.”
Jon Lester held the Angels to four hits in seven shutout innings, but lost his chance at a second victory in the series when they scored twice in the eighth to tie it 2-2. L.A. then 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 squeeze attempt.
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 then made a diving catch of Mark Kotsay’s line drive for the second out.
Again, it was only a temporary save.
Lowrie promptly grounded a single into right, and Bay raced around third and slid ahead of the throw while his teammates poured out of the dugout to celebrate.
“The only thing I’m thinking is, ‘Get a good jump and don’t fall down around third,’” Bay said. “I can’t imagine that it’ll get more intense than this, but it will.”