And speaking of Game 1

10/3/2003

Globe staffers take their turns weighing in on plays and decisions that may have led to the Red Sox' 12-inning, 5-4 demise in the first game of the AL Division Series:

DAN SHAUGHNESSY
There are so many leftover questions and quarrels with the first game of the series. Why was Todd Walker lifted after 8 1/2 innings? The guy had four hits and two homers and it's not as if Damian Jackson is a defensive replacement on a par with Bill Mazeroski. The move took Walker's hot bat out of the lineup for extra innings.

And why not let Mike Timlin at least start the ninth? He had a 1-2-3 eighth, punching out the final two hitters.

While we're at it, why go with your Game 3 starter, a man of fragile psyche, in the 11th and 12th innings? What is Bronson Arroyo doing on the team if he can't pitch in that situation? Oh, and why have Lowe intentionally walk the bases loaded after he gets ahead of Terrence Long, 0-1?

KEVIN PAUL DUPONT
Sox skipper Grady Little, his job security now the equal of Pinky Higgins's final days, forfeited Derek Lowe's 0-1 count on Terrence Long when he ordered the intentional pass to load the bases in the 12th inning.

"To set up a play," explained Little.

The play set -- a force at any base with two outs -- the Red Sox infield was then left ill-prepared defensively for Ramon Hernandez's well-placed rolling bunt to third. Setting up the play should have had the Sox infielders pulled tighter, cheating toward home plate, in hopes of taking advantage of the loaded bases.

But where was Bill Mueller? Playing behind the bag at third. Ditto for Kevin Millar at first. Had all the Sox infielders shaded toward home and then been beaten by a Hernandez rope down the line, so be it. But they were left there for the picking -- just as they were when Long initially came to the plate with runners at first and third -- and ultimately it was Hernandez's execution that beat them. He picked their pockets.

GORDON EDES
Todd Walker was the obvious Game 1 hitting hero, but his throwing error on a routine double-play relay in the seventh inning set in motion a sequence of events that removed any possibility of Pedro Martinez pitching the eighth inning. Martinez came into the seventh inning having thrown 97 pitches. By the time the inning ended, he'd thrown a season-high 130.

BOB HOHLER
One failing Grady Little had no chance to control -- or correct -- was Manny Ramirez's futility at the plate. Ramirez went hitless his first five trips to the plate, leaving the bases loaded in the third inning and stranding two more runners in the fifth. Ramirez ended five innings, leaving David Ortiz in the unusual role of leading off five times. Ortiz had no more success than Ramirez as each went 0 for 5 with a walk.

JACKIE MacMULLAN
When Derek Lowe became a starter last season, he declared how thankful he was to no longer have to fill the role as a relief man. But there Lowe was, throwing 42 pitches in the 11th and 12th innings and looking an awful lot like the Red Sox closer.

Sure, there were extenuating circumstances (like would-be closers Byung Hyun Kim and Alan Embree blowing a one-run, ninth-inning lead), and yes, it was Lowe's day to throw anyway (he hadn't pitched in seven days), but there's a significant difference between tossing some sinkerballs on the side with your pitching coach, and trying to snuff out the AL West champion A's in a pressure-cooker situation.

Lowe was tagged with the loss, and must now turn around and start tomorrow with that baggage aboard. The mental toll exacted from him was evident in the locker room Wednesday night.

So whom should Grady Little have turned to in the 11th? If you think enough of Bronson Arroyo to add him to your playoff roster, shouldn't you think enough of him to use him? If he failed, Little would have been chastised for throwing the kid to the wolves. But throwing Lowe to them instead might cost him in Game 3, as well.