With ragged arms, Sox find riches

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- In the fourth inning of the most important game of the year, Josh Beckett took the mound with a safety net. In the ninth inning, Jonathan Papelbon did the same. And after the Red Sox pulled off yet another great escape, even the pitching coach stood his ground with an unshakeable resolve.

The state of the Red Sox pitching staff at the moment?

"Ready to go," John Farrell snapped as if ready for a fight.

And so there will be a seventh game, again, though a funny thing is happening on the familiar road back to redemption: the Red Sox are taking a different route this time. Their ace is ailing. Their closer is spent. And with their stalwart bookends tipping, the Red Sox are softer at the ends than they are in the middle, where a once-beleaguered Boston bullpen is handling a considerable percentage of the burden.

Amazing.

"You work for 7 1/2 months to get to this point," Farrell said last night in the visiting clubhouse at Tropicana Field, where the Red Sox pulled out a 4-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. "As long as there's enough conversation and not putting guys in harm's way, they're going to let you know what they can do."

More important, they are going to show it.

In the case of Beckett, in particular, we all know the status of affairs now. He is a shell of himself. The Red Sox ace has been all but gutted at this point, which is to say that he has nothing but his insides remaining. Somehow, Beckett still gave the Sox five innings last night in a game when they needed every single out, twice taking the mound (in the fourth and fifth innings) with activity in the bullpen despite having allowed just one run to that point in the game.

Know what that should tell you? That the Red Sox were a little worried about hurting him, that they were concerned he would not make it through the inning, that Beckett long ago switched to his auxiliary tank.

After the game, finally, the Red Sox seemed to acknowledge Beckett's physical issues, at least publicly, with Farrell going so far as to essentially admit that his ace would be on the disabled list if this were weeks ago.

"If we were sitting here in June and we had 3 1/2 months to go, there are a lot of conversations and ..." – Farrell stopped for a long pause here - "possibly a break. But it's October 19th."

And in Boston now, incredible as it seems, October is all that matters.

As for Papelbon, in case, you missed it, his availability last night was in question. In Game 5 of this series, after allowing a two-run double to B.J. Upton that gave the Rays a seemingly insurmountable 7-0 lead, Papelbon walked off the mound at Fenway Park for what he believed was the final time this year. According to Papelbon, his work for the night was done. Only after the Red Sox scored four times did Farrell and Sox manager Terry Francona opt to send Papelbon back out to the mound for another inning, a move that proved critical when Papelbon posted a 1-2-3 eighth and the Sox rallied for three more runs to tie the game at 7.

In that game, when Papelbon went out for his second inning of work, the velocity of his pitches mysteriously had dipped by 3 to 5 mph. Physically and mentally, he had trouble turning it back up. And two days later, when Papelbon arose on the morn of Game 6 and began running his very own diagnostics program, the indicators were, in a word, poor.

"For me, there are a few [checkpoints] during the day. The first is when I wake up," Papelbon said.

And how did he feel on Saturday?

"I felt tired," he said.

The next checkpoint?

"You get here and you get ready for pregame, pick up a ball and try to play catch," he said.

The assessment there?

"I didn't throw a whole lot," Papelbon said. "I really just picked up a ball and got some motion in. Then you have one more time when you assess your status."

For Papelbon, that usually comes between the fourth and fifth innings, sometimes between the fifth and sixth, when he makes his nightly trek to the bullpen from the Boston clubhouse, a cup of coffee often in his right hand. By then, Papelbon has "had something to eat" and perked up some; on Saturday, he said, he "started to climb a hill." The Red Sox nonetheless knew that Papelbon could give them no more than an inning, if that, going so far as to tell him that they would be prepared to use him for even a single out or two in the middle innings (as was the case in Game 5) if it came to that.

When Papelbon finally entered the game, in the ninth, the Sox were still concerned enough that they had Manny Delcarmen warmed and ready before Papelbon threw a single pitch, an unprecedented maneuver for a club (and manager) that typically wins (usually) or loses (rarely) with a closer that Cleveland Indians manager Eric Wedge recently called "a separator."

The point is that Papelbon went to the mound with nothing on Saturday and everybody knew it, and he recorded a 1-2-3 inning (on eight pitches, seven strikes) despite never really cracking 92 mph on the stadium radar gun. A man accustomed to pitching like a young Dick Radatz instead looked like an aged Trevor Hoffman, which only made his work more impressive, not less.

"I didn't look at the radar gun, but, [expletive], it felt like I was throwing 85 miles an hour," Papelbon said. "This has nothing to do with talent or anything else. These are the games where you will yourself to win and you will yourself to succeed."

In between the ace and the closer, the Red Sox got three scoreless innings from Hideki Okajima (two) and Justin Masterson (one), each of whom possesses one of the few (and precious) fresh arms on the Boston staff. Their work did not go overlooked. Back in May and June, the middle of the Red Sox pitching staff seemed like the indisputable weak link on this team; now it seems the strength. Combined, Okajima and Masterson have posted a 1.93 ERA in 18 2/3 innings this postseason; in 12 innings during this ALCS, their ERA is 0.75. The Red Sox are now pitching from the inside out instead of from the outside in, a rather astonishing development and adjustment for a team that now seems to be operating on fumes.

And winning just the same.

"Everybody knows how everybody's feeling," Farrell said of his staff.

Entering Game 7, they are clearly beaten up.

Just the same, they are raring and ready to go.