Damon Can Run all the Way to New York

I took the liberty of including this 5 hour 49 minute marathon, but if you remember the disemboweling the Sox suffered in Game 3 there is a common thread - Tim Wakefield, Tim took one for the team. Check this out courtesy of Steve Silva of Boston.com: 

“We were getting killed,” Wakefield said, looking back at Game 3. “And I was thinking about what can I do to help this situation and started discussing it with Doug Mirabelli, who was at the end of the bench with me. It was just one of those situations as a reliever, and I was taught by Phil [Niekro] and Charlie [Hough], to always have your spikes on. Because as a knuckleball pitcher, you’re so versatile that you can start one day and then two days later you can come in in relief, that was the nature of how we threw the ball, it didn’t tax our arms or anything.

“So I got up and I went down to Tito and I said, ‘Do you need me to do anything, tonight? You need to go to the bullpen? What do you need to do?’ And he hesitated for a second, and he said, ‘Go ask Derek [Lowe] if he can start tomorrow. And Derek was still on the roster, but he wasn’t slated to do it. He wasn’t in the bullpen. He wasn’t going to be one of our starters. So I went down and I asked Derek, I said ‘D, um, Tito wants to know if you can start tomorrow,’ and he got this big grin on his face and he said, “Yeah,” I’m like ‘alright.’ So I ran in and I got my glove and took off for the bullpen, and was at that point obviously I got called into the game, because it was really getting out of hand. And we needed Timlin to pitch tomorrow, because that was the most important part of the bullpen, Timlin, Embree, and Keith Foulke, the last three guys… If the starter could go six, the game was over with at that point. So I went down there and tried to eat up as many innings as possible to go out and save those three guys, because they were pretty worn out from the first three games.”

Guess who threw three innings to win the Game 5 marathon? I think you know the answer. If you want to see Papi's epic 10 pitch at bat against Loaiza. Cue the video up to the 4:46 mark for some nail biting clutch hitting. At one point, early on Papi was down 1-2 and the fifth pitch was a deflating deep foul ball. Hail to one of the longest and most exciting games in post season history. David Ortiz wins two games in one day as he hit a 2 run homer in the wee hours of the 18th to win Game 4.