ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -This comeback came up short.
There will be no championship parade for the Boston Red Sox this year. No back-to-back titles. At last, the defending champs are headed home for the winter.
They sure put up a fight, though.
Always tough to knock out in October, the Red Sox were finally eliminated Sunday night with a 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 7 of the AL championship series.
Boston was on the brink way back in Game 5. Trailing 7-0 with two outs in the seventh inning, the Red Sox somehow rallied to win 8-7. Then they won Game 6 at Tampa Bay, too.
But that was it.
Trying to rally from a 3-1 deficit in the ALCS for the second consecutive year, the Red Sox were shut down by Matt Garza, David Price and the upstart Rays.
The Red Sox had momentum and experience on their side Sunday. But a promising start, in which Dustin Pedroia homered in the first and starter Jon Lester was perfect through three, couldn’t stop the young Rays from a comeback of their own.
Tampa Bay even at 1 in the fourth.
One inning later, basketball Hall of Famer Dick Vitale, a Rays’ fan since the expansion season of 1998, was out of his seat near the third-base dugout and cheering wildly when Rocco Baldelli’s run-scoring single made it 2-1.
The momentum had shifted, and Boston’s season was in jeopardy.
The Red Sox were the eighth team to force a Game 7 in a league championship series after trailing 3-1. Six of the previous seven teams – including Boston in the 1986, 2004 and 2007 – won Game 7 and advanced to the World Series.
The Rays, who had never won more than 70 games in a regular season before this year’s AL East championship run, made sure that history was irrelevant in 2008.
Offensive woes did in the Red Sox. Boston could muster just one hit through six innings off starter Matt Garza.
Jason Varitek, who hit a tiebreaking homer in Boston’s 4-2 Game 6 win on Saturday, came up in the seventh with two on and two outs. This time, the Red Sox captain failed, striking out against Garza to end the threat.
Down 3-1 in the eighth, Boston tried to rally again, putting two on with no outs. However, this time the embattled Rays’ bullpen, which gave up seven runs Thursday, stopped Boston.
that loaded the bases.
Rookie David Price, who will likely be in the rotation next season, entered and struck out J.D. Drew.
Boston’s postseason run had come to an end.
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