game 5 came, and it went. it went badly for us. analogous to game 1. appropriately, the starters were the same, and so were the pitching results. actually, both starters threw better.

there was 'mr postseason' josh beckett. he pitched very well in game 1. in game 5, he was outstanding. one first inning run, way too many strikeouts. the game started out well for us. grady sizemore hit an opposite field bloop hustle double. drubie followed with a rocket shot single that was hit too dang hard to score grady. two batters, two hits, and thoughts of a sore back beckett dancing through my head. up comes ALCS offensive party pooper travis hafner. pronk had 4 strikeouts the prior game. in this case, striking out would have been advantageous; because victor martinez singled after pronk's AB. but the bases were empty, and not because of a 3 run jack into pronkville. no. beckett did permit pronk to make contact, and pronk grounded into a DP. after martinez's single the final out was made. and we did not have a serious scoring threat until the ninth against papelbon. i cannot recall a runner reaching second since grady's lead off two bagger.

then there was c.c. . he did make it through five innings last night. he was only down 2-1 after 6 actually. but i finally have to question wedge for letting c.c. come out in the 7th. leaving the starter in is one mistake wedge constantly makes. he was over 100 mostly pressure packed pitches. he had only given up the two runs to that point; but manny was thrown out at the plate in the first, he escaped a bases loaded no out jam, and seemed to have bases runners on in every inning. c.c faces two batters in the second, and both reach base on extra base hits.

so, this really was a team loss. c.c. did not pitch to his potential. wedge made a managerial mistake. we made a big error in the knockout 7th (7 haven been a good number for us). and the bullpen did not pitch well collectively for the time in the postseason. the error was actually made by raffy perez from the bullpen. he threw away what could have been a potential double play with an errant toss to second. and mastny's wildness also hurt. grady even failed to make two extraordinary plays. i cannot recall the last time i saw a ball bounce out of his glove, regardless of the effort he exudes.

there was some drama. kenny and beckett almost got into it. kenny prematurely performed his patented bat flip after a ball four. only thing, it was called (and was) a strike. the mayor flew out to left on the next pitch, and words were spoken by each on kenny's way back to the dugout.

now kenny has performed the bat flip since his hey days with us. i remember a co-worker teaching another co worker's child the technique at an employee softball game. this was in the late 90's. but kenny's bat flip is nothing compared to manny's new found penchant for HR watching from home plate. this was evidenced in game 4 when he acted like his solo bomb was a game winner in extra innings of game 7 of the world series. instead, it only cut boston's lead from 5 to 4 runs. it was also evidenced last night with his 390 plus foot two out single that scored the slow and leg injured david ortiz from first.

now it is back to boston. anything is possible.