October 15, 2007: Westbrook outpitches Matsuzaka as Cleveland takes 2-1 lead in ALCS

The 2007 American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians was even. Each team had won one game by seven runs in Boston. Admittedly, though, Game Two could have gone either way; it was decided in the 11th inning. Now they were at Jacobs Field in Cleveland for Games Three, Four, and Five.

In Game Three, Indians manager Eric Wedge – who had been named The Sporting News Manager of the Year earlier that day – started veteran Jake Westbrook. The 30-year-old right-hander had missed most of May and June with a strained abdominal muscle and finished with a less-than-inspiring 6-9 record and a 4.32 ERA. His first postseason pitching appearance was in Game Three of the AL Division Series against the New York Yankees. He had given up six runs in five innings, three on ex-Red Soxer Johnny Damon’s homer, and lost, 8-4.

Terry Francona’s starter for Boston was Daisuke Matsuzaka, who had gone 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA and a Red Sox rookie record 201 strikeouts. Though a US major-league rookie, he had eight years of experience in Japanese major-league ball, all for the Seibu Lions, where he had pitched so well he had earned a massive contract with the Red Sox.1 He’d lost four of his last six starts in the regular season, but held the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to three runs in 4⅔ innings in Game Two of the ALDS.

In the first inning, the only player to reach base for either team was Boston’s Kevin Youkilis, who walked but was removed from the basepaths when David Ortiz hit into a double play.

The Red Sox loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the second. Manny Ramírez walked, Mike Lowell singled, and J.D. Drew reached on Ryan Garko’s fielding error at first base. But a Jason Varitek fly ball and another double play hit into by Coco Crisp resulted in nothing in the runs column.

It was the Indians who scored first, in the bottom of the second, on a one-out single to center by Garko and a two-run home run just over the nine-foot wall in right-center by Kenny Lofton. Lofton was back for a third time with Cleveland – giving him 10 total seasons with the team – after a late July trade from the Texas Rangers. He had not homered in 196 plate appearances for the 2007 Indians but came up big with this one. The ball went out over a leaping J.D. Drew.2 It “bounced off the top of the wall before falling safely into the outstretched arms of the fans who adore the 40-year-old,” reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer.3 Trot Nixon grounded out to end the inning, but the Indians led, 2-0.

The third inning was relatively uneventful. The Red Sox went down in order. After “Dice-K” got two outs, Asdrúbal Cabrera singled and Travis Hafner walked, but Victor Martínez struck out swinging.

David Ortiz led off the fourth with a double to left but was called out when Ramírez’s hit struck him in the thigh between second and third.4 Ramirez was credited with a single, but two groundouts followed.

Sinkerballer Westbrook retired the three Boston batters he faced in the fifth, all on groundouts.  The Indians scored twice more in their half for a 4-0 lead. With one out, Casey Blake singled over third base. He took second on a wild pitch to Grady Sizemore, who walked a few pitches later. Cabrera singled up the middle, scoring Blake and sending Sizemore to third. Hafner hit into a force at second but hustled to beat out the double play as Sizemore scored. When Martínez singled, Francona pulled Matsuzaka for Mike Timlin, who struck out Garko.

The Red Sox tried to rally in the sixth. After one out, Youkilis singled and Ortiz walked, but Ramírez hit into a 6-4-3 double play, Boston’s third of the game.5

After Timlin retired the side in order in the bottom of the sixth, the Red Sox got on the board in the seventh. J.D. Drew singled to center with one out. Varitek then homered – just beyond center fielder Sizemore’s leap – to cut the Indians lead in half: 4-2. It was Varitek’s 10th postseason home run for the Red Sox, tying David Ortiz and Manny Ramírez for the franchise record.

One out later, Julio Lugo singled, and Dustin Pedroia, headed for AL Rookie of the Year honors, came to the plate as the potential tying run. Wedge called in Jensen Lewis. It took Lewis eight pitches, but he struck out Pedroia for the third out.

Hideki Okajima pitched to three Indians in the bottom of the seventh and got outs from all three.

Rafael Betancourt faced three Red Sox batters in the eighth and retired all three. After Hafner grounded out in the bottom of the eighth, Okajima walked Victor Martínez. Manny Delcarmen took over in relief and struck out the two batters he faced, with seven pitches – Garko and Jhonny Peralta.

Looking to hold the two-run lead, Wedge called on Joe Borowski, whose 45 saves had led the American League. Borowski booked his second postseason save of the year. Lowell popped up to first base. Drew hit a fly ball to center for the second out. And, though Varitek battled for nine pitches, he popped up to third base on the 10th one.

Westbrook got the win. Fourteen of his 20 outs were on groundballs. Wedge was appreciative: “We needed it. Our bullpen has been working hard. We needed Jake to get us that deep into the game.”6

Cleveland had taken a two-games-to-one lead in the series, in a close game that resembled not at all the two that had come before. The Indians, whose regular-season home record of 51-29 was topped only by the Angels and Yankees, were now unbeaten in three postseason games at Jacobs Field. The Red Sox were concerned about their starting pitching, other than Game One starter Josh Beckett. The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo wrote, “The last two starts, by Curt Schilling and Matsuzaka, have not been very good. At least, not playoff-good.”7 

Utility infielder Alex Cora said, “There are guys on this team who have been down a lot worse than 2-1. … We’re not going to say, ‘Oh my God, we’re down 2-1, what are we going to do?’ and throw our hands up and give up. We have to win a game or two here so we can bring this back to our ballpark. Everyone has a lot of faith in being able to get that done.”8

In Cleveland, there was something more like euphoria. One Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist mused: “[N]ow the Indians are halfway to the World Series. For much of Monday’s game, red, blue and silver streamers from the pregame festivities, which had gotten snagged on the third deck’s facade, blew in the wind, like favors for a long-planned party. And today Indians fans wonder again how great it might be.”9

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. Thanks to Joe Wancho for providing Cleveland newspaper clippings.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE200710150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B10150CLE2007.htm

Two highlight videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQMqpF5m7Zs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQacXJezZ7M

Photo credit: Jake Westbrook, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Boston paid the Lions $51.1 million for the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka under the old MLB-NPB posting agreement, then signed him to a six-year, $52 million contract in December 2006.” Thomas Harrigan, “Dice-K Retires, Surprised by Ichiro in Finale,” mlb.com, December 14, 2021. https://www.mlb.com/news/daisuke-matsuzaka-retires-after-23-year-career.

2 For a good appreciation of Lofton, see Jim McCabe, “Lofton Is Their Comeback Kid,” Boston Globe, October 16, 2007: D4.

3 Jodie Valade, “With One Swing, Lofton Steals the Show,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 16, 2007: D6.

4 Of the blunder, Francona said, “They weren’t holding him and he had a big lead. He took a jab step toward third, and I think he realized he was in no-man’s land. He stopped and the ball hit him. By that point, he was probably out, anyway.” Gordon Edes, “Dicey Situation,” Boston Globe, October 16, 2007: D1, D7.

5 The Red Sox had also hit into three double plays in Game Two. Adding the one from Game One, the total of seven was the most any team had hit into in first three games of a League Championship Series. The Red Sox also hit into a raft of other groundball outs. Edes.

6 Paul Hoynes, “Pointing the Way—Westbook Leads Tribe to 2-1 Edge,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 16, 2007: D1.

7 Nick Cafardo, “Shaky Team Tries to Keep the Faith,” Boston Globe, October 16, 2007: D2.

8 Cafardo.

9 Bill Livingston, “Lofton’s shot recalls falls past,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 16, 2007: D5. The Indians won Game Four to take a three-games-to-one lead, but the Red Sox won the final three games, outscoring Cleveland 30-5, to reach the World Series, where they swept the Colorado Rockies in four games for the seventh World Series title in franchise history.