While there were slight smiles on the faces of reporters around him, Varitek quickly replied in his often serious, slight tone, “We will at some point.”
“Some point” finally came.
After recording a grand total of 19 runs in the last five games of their recently completed road trip, the Sox got 20 hits in a 17-8 rout of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Monday night that seemed to lift a weight off their collective shoulders.
“We probably needed a night like that,” manager Terry Francona said.
Seven Boston players had at least two hits. One of those who did not, Dustin Pedroia, ripped one of the team’s four home runs. J.D. Drew matched a career high with four hits. Mike Lowell matched a career high with three doubles. Boston had 11 extra-base hits. Ten different players scored at least one run.
It was a head-spinning evening that goes down as the only win all season in which the Sox could actually coast in the end, as evidenced by the fact that Scott Schoeneweis gave up four runs in the ninth inning and nobody even moved a muscle in the Boston bullpen.
Each of the Sox’ last seven wins prior to Monday had come by two runs or less. Prior to that stretch they had a 6-3 win in Minnesota that required a three-run double in the eighth by Jeremy Hermida and a tense finish after the Twins got the tying run to the plate in the ninth.
Prior to that there were two wins over the Kansas City Royals that required plenty of work to be done in the late innings, and the victory against the New York Yankees on Opening Day which saw Boston take the lead in the seventh.
Boston has played two more extra-inning games than any other team in the majors.
Essentially, there has never even been such a thing as breathing room. Until Monday.
After the outburst, many players were cautiously optimistic as to what such a showing could mean long term.
“Hopefully this can be a nice step to getting to that groove,” Lowell said. “We’re not gonna bang out 20 hits every night but the ability is there to be an offensive team.”
In addition to Lowell and Drew, who have seen plenty of nights like this at Fenway, were two who had not. Adrian Beltre and Bill Hall both slugged their first home runs in a Red Sox uniform and combined for five RBIs.
Hall said he could feel some pressure lift off the team after his two-run shot in the second gave Boston a 3-0 lead, almost as if the team could sense what was coming.
“We have a lot of guys that have had to carry teams in the past,” said Hall. “When we got off to a bad start I think guys started pressing a little bit, trying to carry the team, and nobody was doing the job.
Collectively, as a team, I think everybody can relax and go from here.”
Interestingly enough, Varitek’s words nearly two weeks ago were not the most prophetic. Just hours before Monday’s eruption, Francona had said that there will be periods when his team “scalds the ball” and that when they do mistakes will no longer be noticeable, as they always are in tight games.
Sure enough, nobody will recall that Beltre had his sixth error of the season Monday night and that the Angels did manage 12 hits and five walks of their own.
“When you hit the ball like we did, when you have that many base runners,” Francona said postgame.
“When you’re up and something goes wrong, it’s not as glaring.”
What is glaring is a Red Sox rout, the first of its kind in a nail-biting season.
