Blue Jays 12-0, FINAL: Roy Halladay pitches a three-hit shutout for his ninth complete game of the season. The Red Sox lose their sixth in a row, but do not have to give back their Wild Card berth.
Mid 9th, Blue Jays 12-0: After the Jays hit four more homers tonight, Dusty Brown pitched the ninth, becoming the third position player to pitch in a game this season, a Red Sox team record. Jonathan Van Every and Nick Green were the other two. Brown is the first catcher in Red Sox history to pitch in a game. Brown allowed a run, but struck out Randy Ruiz to end the inning.
End 7th, Blue Jays 10-0: David Ortiz, who got plunked by Halladay in the second, is two homers shy of 30 and four shy of 100. His turnaround after a dreadful April and May was one of the top storylines of the season. "He had a trying season and a really trying first couple of months when he looked lost at the plate," Epstein said. "There were times that there was reason for optimism, but there was a lot of times when there was nothing that you could grab onto, aside from belief in the player and belief in the person."
"It would have been easy for him to land on the DL or tell himself deep down he’s gonna wait until next year and I’ll put up big numbers or be embarrassed by his batting average, but he’s really grinding through and cobbled together a pretty good season, especially under the circumstances. He deserves a lot of credit for sticking with it."
End 6th, Blue Jays 10-0: Gathright is making a serious bid to make the postseason roster. All such decisions are coming Monday. "I try not to have too many gut feelings about the roster, because then if you rely solely on your gut, your gut changes," Epstein said. "If you followed the public perception of this team, even over the past six weeks, it was ‘We can’t score runs for six games, we’re dead in the water.’ Then all of a sudden we’re world beaters and everyone’s pick to win the World Series and now I feel like the last week or 10 days, ‘Oh no, they’re limping in, they’re backing in again.’ All that doesn’t really mean anything. All that matter is: How good are we and how are we going to play in October, and I think we’re good. I think we’re a really good club. How we’re going to play in October, nobody can answer that."
8:59 p.m.: Joey Gathright is fast becoming the folk hero of the Fall. Gathright already made a spectacular catch in center, and now, with one out in the sixth, he singles off Halladay to break up the no-hitter. Still, the Jays lead 10-0 and the Sox are headed for a sixth straight loss.
End 5th, Blue Jays 8-0: The joke before the game, upon looking at the Red Sox lineup, was that Halladay might throw a 50-pitch no-hitter. Not sure about the pitch count, but the no-hitter is 12 outs from reality.
End 4th, Blue Jays 5-0: Halladay takes the no-hitter to the fifth. But already, the Red Sox focus is on the Angels, something Epstein touched on before the game: "The way this month has evolved, playing the percentages, it’s looked for a while like we were going to play the Angels, so we’ve had some time to get a head start on planning and thoughts about roster construction and pitching and most importantly, advanced scouting. So that process now just continues. We’ve gotten a head start on it and we’ll continue the process of sharing information and doing some analysis and ultimately getting the information to the players and Tito."
Mid 4th, Blue Jays 5-0: Tim Wakefield is done after three innings, allowing five runs on seven hits, including two homers. Meanwhile, Roy Halladay has yet to allow a hit against the "B" lineup.
End 3rd, Blue Jays 5-0: The turning point for the season came July 31, when the Red Sox acquired Victor Martinez. The addition of the swtich-hitting power man transformed the lineup and required the Red Sox to use the slumping Jason Varitek less and less. Epstein on the Martinez impact: "We felt that the offense needed a bit of help and the ability to bring in someone who I consider to be an elite hitter, a guy who could fit right in the three hole, a switch hitter and hits good pitching was a unique opportunity.
The fact that he could catch and play first base and fit into our roster construction really well provided contingencies for a couple of different scenarios that could have evolved. … He was the right fit at the right time for this club in that respect. And his leadership, as well. He came in seamlessly into a pennant race and provided legitimate leadership at the same time.''
Mid 3rd, Blue Jays 5-0: 2009 is not ending well for Wakefield, who gives up a pair of homers in the inning. Wakefield even hit John McDonald with a pitch, although it was clearly a knuckler that got away.
End 2nd, Blue Jays 2-0: No more fireworks after Papi's plunking. Not that Wakefield is going to retaliate anyway.
7:37 p.m.: Roy Halladay wasn't buying Jonathan Papelbon's apology. Halladay just drilled David Ortiz on the left elbow, the night after Papelbon hit Adam Lind on the elbow in the ninth inning — after Lind had hit three homers in the game. Ortiz stared at Halladay for a good 30 seconds, and home plate umpire Mike DiMuro warned both benches.
Mid 2nd, Blue Jays 2-0: Wakefield gives up two runs on three hits. It's looking increasingly likely that this is the last outing of 2009 for Wakefield, who has shown tremendous courage pitching through his injury, but has no role in the postseason.
End 1st, 0-0: The spring training-like lineup goes down in order in the first: Joey Gathright, Josh Reddick and Casey Kotchman. "I think for a couple guys [rest] was important," Terry Francona said before the game. "[Dustin] Pedroia and
[Jacoby] Ellsbury, especially. They played a lot this last [stretch]. Everybody else had kind of gotten a blow this last week, but those two hadn’t."
Mid 1st, 0-0: Wakefield walks two and allows a double to Vernon Wells, but leaves the bases loaded. The Red Sox entered tonight's game having lost 7 of 9, but general manager Theo Epstein was not overly concerned, drawing no correlation between late-season and postseason performance. "It’s important that they finish the season in good health and we’ve had good news lately in that regard," Epstein said. "It would be nice if every player on the roster got a hit in his last at-bat or put up a zero in his last inning, but anecdotally, and based on the large body of evidence, it really doesn’t matter."
"If you’re talking about what does it mean for the postseason? It doesn’t matter. Even from a team standpoint, anecdotally and if you look at all the data that’s out there, even finishing strong over the last week, two weeks, month, it actually has no bearing whatsoever on how the team performs in October."
"It feels better when you finish strong. I want to finish strong. We all want to finish strong. It feels better. But the difference between how you feel and what actually matters, if you look at it, I’m sure there’s evidence of teams finishing strong and going on to win the World Series. But for every one of those examples, there’s an example of a team finishing strong and getting swept, or a team that lost 15 of its last 18 going into October and winning the World Series. So, if you break down the numbers, there’s simply no correlation."
7:10 p.m.: The one aspect of this game worth noting is how Tim Wakefield looks in this final start of 2009. It si doubtful he would be added to the Division Series roster, but the ALCS could be another matter, and this is the final audition.
5 p.m.: It's the Day After at Fenway Park (or, technically, Later The Same Day), and the Red Sox have finally landed safely in the postseason. At a few minutes before 1 a.m., the Rangers lost and the Red Sox celebrated — some in the clubhouse, some on airplanes about to land in Virginia (Terry Francona), some with toddler duties just hours away (Theo Epstein).
All gathered back at Fenway this afternoon knowing they have a date with the Angels late next week. Francona, who made it back to Boston around 3 p.m. after witnessing the graduation of his son Nick from Marine Corps training in Quantico, Va., has begun the process of resting his regulars for the Division Series. Only David Ortiz and Alex Gonzalez will play tonight.
