Strip away everything about last night's game but the final score. Now look at that score with the score of Game 1 in the ALCS. Red Sox 2-0. Rays 9-8. The Red Sox still got their split in Tampa this weekend. As the lower seed in this series, getting the split in a stadium where the Rays have a decided home field advantage is huge. Everything that could be looked at as a negative result for the Red Sox last night can be replicated for the Rays, except for the final score. Josh Beckett was alarmingly bad last night, but so was Scott Kazmir. The Red Sox bullpen threw a lot of pitches, but so did the Rays' pen. Someone was eventually going to win that game and whoever did would immediately claim the "momentum" from the pundits, but the truth is that both teams are equally beaten up after last night.
There were a lot of red flags for the Red Sox last night, but with them the Red Sox offense finally came alive with Dustin Pedroia having a huge game and Jason Bay continuing to bash the crap out of the ball in this post-season. As worried as all Sox fans likely are right now, they're still only a big Jon Lester start away from having a 2-1 lead in this series. That's exactly where they would've wanted to be before this series started.




