Wherever you are, just breathe. Take a deep breath. It feels good once you do a few different times.
In a game that started ugly and wet, the Sox went down by five runs early, but battled back to beat the Yankees, 7-6, on Tuesday.
It was exactly like Monday. The Red Sox fought back from a five-run defeceit and went into the 9th with a two-run lead. Despite many OTM commentators wanting Daniel Bard to stay on the mound, Terry Francona brought Jonathan Papelbon out -- again -- to try and earn the save.
It wasn't pretty, but he did it.
Last night's hero was Marcus Thames. Tonight's goat is Marcus Thames. We call that poetic justice. With one out and Darnell McDonald on first, Marco Scutaro hit a fly to short right field for Thames to catch. The ball hit off his glove and landed in the grass, allowing Scutaro to reach base. It brought Jeremy Hermida to the plate (who came into the game for an injured JD Drew).
And what does he do? "The Herm Locker" doubles over Randy Winn's head into left field. The Sox take the 7-5 lead and it sets it up for Paps. (Did I mention this was all against Mariano Rivera? No. OK, well it was. It was pretty impressive.)
Papelbon looked OK. He didn't look great. He didn't look like old Papelbon who used to strikeout guys when he ran into trouble. His fastball sat in the 92-93 range and hit 95 when he tried to get Winn for the last out. His splitter, though, was non-existent. Papelbon also had a great snag on the mound, grabbing a comebacker for the inning's second out.
OK, take another moment to breathe.
There were ugly moments tonight, yes -- including Josh Beckett and Drew leaving early because of injuries, Scoot's error in the 9th, and probably a few more -- but let's focus on the good. That being the Red Sox fought back, took the lead, held the lead and won the game. We didn't see that last night, but we saw it tonight and it was beautiful.
This could have been the nail in the coffin for the Red Sox. Going down 5-0 early was bad and it looked like a hard hole to climb out of. But even with last night's heartbreaker, the Sox fought back and the pitching kept the game in check.
The Red Sox are still working hard to win games. Last night was deflating, but these players know this season isn't lost. There are still many more games to play and they're still going to work their collective ass off to win these games.
Don't count out the Red Sox just yet, because they're not counting themselves out either.