You have to love Jonny Gomes. Ken Rosenthal comes out, and, much as I do love his work, just continues to talk about Detroit Tigers starter Justin Verlander even though he was the only pitcher in the game on either side to give up a run, and therefore took the loss. That's how it was leading up to the game, too: Verlander, Verlander, Verlander, to the point that Game 4 starter Jake Peavy went out of his way to talk up how little love Verlander's opponent, John Lackey, was getting heading into the contest.
So, Gomes goes out of his way to flip things around and focus on Lackey before talking about how good Verlander was -- and, to be fair, Verlander was phenomenal. Lackey had himself a ridiculous outing too, though, striking out eight, walking none, with all four baserunners he alloweds stranded. He only threw 6-2/3 innings because manager John Farrell wanted to start playing match-ups, not because he was done at 97 pitches.
This start by Lackey might turn out to be the turning point of the entire series, as it guaranteed things would shift back to Fenway for at least one game, and handed Verlander and the Tigers a loss in one of the two possible starts he could make. Just a huge, huge game for Lackey. Gomes rightfully wanted to talk about that, and who can blame him?