Game 28: Lester duels with Halladay; Yuke hits game winner

Red Sox 1
Blue Jays 0

Raise your hand if you thought Jon Lester was going to go toe to toe with Roy Halladay for 8 innings last night?

::crickets noises::

I thought so.

The Red Sox offense continued to be non-existent last night as Roy Halladay did what he does best - pitch complete games. But Jon Lester, who normally can't get into the 6th inning, needed just 97 pitches to get through the 8th and gave up just 1 hit.

The Sox called on Papelbon in the 9th to get past the top of the Blue Jays order (Rios, Stairs, Rolen & Wells) and did, thanks to one of the best plays we'll see this year from Dustin Pedroia (video here).

Then the Sox tapped into the bucket of drama that they keep in the Fenway basement...

Halladay got Coco and Pedroia to pop out, meaning David "Mr. Clutch" Ortiz -- aka. Big "5 HRs, 20 RBI vs Halladay" Papi, would have to provide the heroics.

He nearly did, blasting a fould ball just to the right of Pesky's pole, and then earned the first walk of the night from Halladay.

That gave Manny a chance to hit his 497th HR, and the crowd desperately wanted to see it, but Halladay had been jamming Manny all night with a nasty slider. It was that same pitch that Manny eventually blooped into center field - but there was no way he could have hit it out of the ball park.

With Papi and his bad knee on second Remy and the rest of us were clamoring for a pinch runner, but Tito didn't budge. Yuke would hit a liner up the middle and a Vernon Wells bobble would make it easy for him to score and win the game for the Sox.

BL Hero: I'm gonna give this one to both Yuke and Lester, because you can't ignore the game winning RBI, but Lester performance was simply amazing - I never saw it coming.

Bottom Line: The Red Sox have relied on that bucket of drama throughout April. They are 6-2 in one run games and 4-3 in 7 games decided by 2 runs... But the win today makes them 16-12 - a win today means I missed the mark by one game with my 18-11 prediction.

Notes: Mike Lowell went 0-3 with a strikeout in his return, but looked fine defensively... The Sox designated for assignment Bryan Corey to make room on the roster for Lowell... Jacoby Ellsbury had great numbers against Halladay, but missed the game with a sore groin... JD Drew injured his quad in his first at-bat and was replaced by Brandon Moss who managed to grab a hit in two at-bats...

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