Oct 4, 2008 - 10:59 PM
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BOSTON (Ticker) -- When you've lost the first two games of a best-of-five series after winning 100 games in the regular season, urgency takes on a whole new meaning.
It was with that sense of desperation that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim took to the Fenway Park turf shortly after 8 p.m. EDT on Saturday night, following a cross-country flight, for a 45-minute workout.
Instead of spending the night resting in their hotels, the Angels were trying to figure a way to hit with runners in scoring position - something they have failed to do against the Boston Red Sox with any regularity in dropping the first two games of their American League Divisional Series.
"Yeah, (the hits are) going to come," Anaheim center fielder Torii Hunter said. "I can hit a ball (hard) and still get out. All you can do is have some luck on your side and, hopefully, things will go your way."
For his part, Hunter spent the flight icing his hyperextended right knee, an injury he suffered arguing an out call at first base in the third inning of Friday night's game.
Hunter said the injury will not keep him out of Game Three on Sunday night.
"It was a little bit of hyperextension in my left knee," Hunter said. "I feel pretty good. Trust me, I'm going to be in there even if it didn't. I iced five or six times today."
Even up two games to none and one win away from their fourth American League Championship Series appearance in the last six years, the Red Sox are monitoring their own injuries.
Josh Beckett, who owns a 6-0 career record with a 1.73 ERA in the postseason, gets the start for the Red Sox after being pushed back with a strained oblique.
Third baseman Mike Lowell says he will be "fine" for Game Three but is still nursing a torn labrum in his left hip, and right fielder J.D. Drew is questionable with lingering back stiffness, despite hitting the game-winning homer in the ninth inning Friday night.
The Red Sox's charter landed back in Boston at 8:45 Saturday morning. After sleeping, the team held an optional workout at Fenway at 5 p.m.
Red Sox manager Terry Francona said if Drew can't go in consecutive games, Coco Crisp would get the call in center field with Jacoby Ellsbury moving to right.
Boston has beaten the Angels a major league-record 11 straight times in the postseason, dating back to Game 4 of the 1986 American League Championship Series. It will be up to 17-game winner Joe Saunders to keep that streak from reaching 12 games.
A loss would end Anaheim's postseason dreams end at the hands of the Red Sox for the third time in five years.
"I just know that our ball club is a team that if you give us an inch, we're going to take a mile," Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon said. "That's the kind of mindset we have in this clubhouse. I know everybody in this clubhouse wants to keep applying the pressure and want to keep that foot on their neck."
