In one inning, El Duque finished off the 2004 champs and added another chapter to his postseason history. It was perhaps the best pitched inning I have seen. The inning itself, the 6th, ran almost one hour."Everybody in the park was nervous," White Sox first-base coach Tim Raines said, "except for one man: El Duque."
The Duke came in with bases loaded and no outs. There is no worse situation a pitcher could come into face, especially considering it was in Fenway, against the World Champs and in the playoffs. But incredibly, El Duque got out of it all with no runs scoring. He got Varitek and Graffanino to pop up and got Johnny D on a check swing--yes he did--strikeout. It was amazing. Ozzie said, "I knew he would bring cold blood."
3 innings, 1 hit, 4 strikeouts. So not only did he get out of that huge jam, he went on to pitch 2 more scoreless innings to get it to "Bad Bobby" Jenks.
El Duque made the playoff roster, but with much debate whether it should be him or rookie sensation Brandon McCarthy. I thought Luis Vizcaino should be the odd man out. He might be for the next series. But for this series, the Sox bullpen gave 0 runs.
And there were huge contributions on offense. AJ's game 1. Iguchi's blast to take the lead in Game 2. Rowand, Uribe and of course, Konerko with huge hits. Jermaine Dye did not swing the bat well through the 3 games but he had a HUGE walk to start the 6th. Konerko followed with the homer to put the Sox up.
You can feel it. After seeing some of the Yanks-Angels game last night, neither of those teams look ready to face what the Sox will be bringing. This truly could be the year.
WhiteSox
El Duque
RedSox
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