Boston Red Sox win American League Championship

October 22, 2007 The Boston Red Sox are once again headed to the World Series after being down three games to one. The Red Sox were most recently in the 2004 World Series, which they won.

Last night's game ended with the Red Sox winning 11-2 over the Cleveland Indians. The $103 million rookie import from Japan, Daisuke Matsuzaka (nicknamed "Dice-K"), pitched five innings for Boston, allowing two runs on six hits. Cleveland's Jake Westbrook started and took the loss. This proved to be a much better showing for Boston's "Dice-K" than his previous outing, which Boston lost.

The Sox jumped out to a quick lead, scoring a run in each of the first three innings on a single by Manny Ramirez, a sacrifice ground-out by Julio Lugo, and a sacrifice fly by Mike Lowell. The Indians scored their first run on a Ryan Garko double in the fourth inning, and a Grady Sizemore sacrifice fly in the fifth made the score 3-2 in favor of the Sox.

In the sixth inning, Hideki Okajima came in to relieve "Dice-K" and pitched two scoreless innings before Jonathan Papelbon came in to close in the eighth. He entered the game with runners on first and second and no outs, but quickly retired the side and in the ninth managed to maintain the nine run lead, once again giving fans a performance of his Riverdance style victory dance.

In the seventh inning, Red Sox rookie second baseman Dustin Pedroia hit a two-run home run off of Rafael Betancourt that drove Boston's Fenway Park wild. Boston scored a total of 6 runs in a crazy eighth inning, on a single by J.D. Drew, a three-run double by Pedroia, and a two-run Kevin Youkilis home run which bounced off a large Coke bottle advertisement. Betancourt gave up the first four runs, with the home run allowed by Jenson Lewis. Youkilis was the first batter he faced in relief of Betancourt.

The Sox will go on to face the Colorado Rockies, the surging National League Champions. The series will begin October 24th, with the first game at Fenway Park.