Angels stay alive with 12-inning road win
BOSTON — Torii Hunter was ready to relax.
The Angels had just broken an 11-game postseason losing streak to the Red Sox dating back to 1986 and he needed to calm down off after his two mistakes had nudged his team closer to elimination.
"I need to get a massage and rubdown," Hunter said after 5 hours, 19 minutes of baseball.
"I was tense. I can feel it in my body. Guys were making pitches and I was jumping around in the outfield like I was in high school."
Los Angeles won a major-league high 100 games this season, Hunter's first with the team. Boston nearly ended it in three before the Angels won 5-4 in 12 innings Sunday night.
If they didn't look as dominant as they were in the regular season, the Angels at least showed they could win under pressure in the stadium of a team that had the second best home record in baseball. And the Red Sox started postseason ace Josh Beckett to try to close out the series.
But from his very first pitch, a double by Chone Figgins, Beckett didn't have it.
He allowed four runs in five innings, his shortest stint in 10 postseason starts, and gave up two homers to Mike Napoli — a two-run shot that tied the game at 3 in the third and a solo drive that made it 4-3 in the fifth. Kevin Youkilis' RBI double tied it in the fifth.
Napoli began the winning rally with a leadoff single in the 12th off Javier Lopez. Napoli took second on Kendrick's sacrifice and scored on Erick Aybar's single.
CHICAGO — In a sea of black shirts and waving white towels, the White Sox kept their season afloat.The only Chicago team still left in the playoffs, the White Sox got another gritty pitching performance in an elimination game from lefty John Danks and a key hit from well-traveled DeWayne Wise to beat Tampa Bay 5-3 Sunday.The Rays still lead the series 2-1 with Game 4 Monday at U.S. Cellular Field, where a crowd of 40,142, dressed mostly in black and brandishing contrasting white towels, gave the White Sox a boost."I hope tomorrow they come all dressed in black again. I feed off that and a lot of the guys do," said Wise, who delivered a two-run double in the fourth inning right after some heads-up baserunning by veterans Paul Konerko and Ken Griffey, Jr."We're still alive. We're still in this thing," Wise said.Gavin Floyd will pitch for the White Sox against Andy Sonnanstine of the Rays.As for that other team in Chicago?"I'm just trying to win one game and not get swept. I could care less about the Cubs," Guillen said. He added that he send a text message to Cubs pitcher and fellow Venezuelan Carlos Zambrano, telling him to keep his head up after the North Siders were swept away by the Dodgers.Danks, who beat Minnesota 1-0 last Tuesday in the tiebreaker for the AL Central title, kept his poise and shut down the Rays for 6 2-3 innings.
MILWAUKEE — These Philadelphia Phillies lack a cool nickname, like the "Whiz Kids," the "Fightin' Phils" or even the "Broad Street Bellies."It might be the only thing they're missing.The Phillies are headed to their first NL championship series since 1993, thanks to another dazzling pitching performance, plenty of offensive power and a 6-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. And who's waiting? None other than their old foe, the Los Angeles Dodgers."I don't see no reason in the world why we can't stay right with them," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said.Philadelphia's offense broke out in a big way Sunday. Jimmy Rollins led off the game with a home run, Pat Burrell ended his postseason slump with not one, but two homers, and Jayson Werth added a solo shot.
