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Red Sox starter Jon Lester shoveling the ball to first to get Jose Iglesias out. Lester allowed two runs in five and a third innings.
DETROIT — It was a best-of-three now, the American League Championship Series, and it was supposed to only get tougher for the Boston Red Sox. The Detroit Tigers could send out Anibal Sanchez, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Against them, the Red Sox had seemed helpless, and their own starters had been hit or miss.
The Red Sox had little choice but to grind and muscle their way past the Tigers, which is what they did Thursday. They knocked around Sanchez, the first of the three, and bested the Tigers, 4-3, to take a three-games-to-two series lead.
The Red Sox can close out the series Saturday, in Game 6 in Boston, but they will have to do so against Scherzer. Of course, they fared just fine their second time against Sanchez.
Jim Leyland, the Detroit manager, had made a brilliant move the day before, dropping his leadoff hitter, Austin Jackson, to eighth in the order. His offense had come alive. Leyland played down the importance of the change, but he kept the lineup the same Thursday, except for flip-flopping Alex Avila and Omar Infante.
It had appeared the Tigers would again strike first. In the bottom of the first, after Torii Hunter flied out, Miguel Cabrera drew a walk and Prince Fielder singled up the middle to bring up Jhonny Peralta, who singled to left field. Cabrera took off from second base, and Tom Brookens, the third-base coach, waved him home.
Then, as Jonny Gomes fielded the ball and Cabrera rounded third, Brookens held his hands high, telling Cabrera to stop, having apparently changed his mind. It was too late, though. Cabrera chugged home, where Gomes's throw beat him by several steps.
It seemed too early in the game for this much action.
Sanchez and Lester had battled in Game 1 of this series. Sanchez no-hit the Red Sox for six innings, and Lester left in the seventh, having allowed just one run. That lone run would be enough, as the Tigers' bullpen carried the no-hitter into the ninth.
Sanchez struck out 12 batters in that game, but he walked six. Of his 116 pitches, only 66 were strikes. Leyland was hoping Sanchez would manage his pitch count Thursday. Perhaps then Leyland would not have to use his problematic bullpen. In four games, the Red Sox had scored all of three runs against Detroit's starters.
"We've got to get a hit," Mike Napoli said of Sanchez before the game. "We're not going to get out of our game plan. He pitched well, but we got him out after six innings."
In the top of the second, Napoli smashed a Sanchez fastball into the ivy beyond the center-field wall. Gomes reached on an error by Cabrera, and Xander Bogaerts doubled two batters later. David Ross doubled, scoring Gomes, and Jacoby Ellsbury hit a comebacker at Sanchez, who knocked the ball down but saw it trickle away. Ellsbury reached safely as Bogaerts scored, and the Red Sox had a 3-0 lead.
The next inning, Napoli smoked a Sanchez changeup for a ground-rule double. He went to third on a groundout by Gomes, then scored as Sanchez bounced a wild pitch a few feet in front of home plate.
With two on and one out in the fourth inning for the Tigers, Avila was scheduled to bat, but he was pinch-hit for by his backup, Brayan Pena. Avila had had a rough night. As he had blocked home plate in the second inning, Ross, the Red Sox catcher, lowered his shoulder and bowled him over. Avila held on to record the out, and Ross smacked his backside as a sign of respect as he walked away, but Avila appeared shaken up. He missed some playing time in August with a concussion.
Two innings later, Ross fouled a pitch off Avila's mask. After that half inning, he left with a patellar tendon strain in his left knee and was labeled day-to-day. So Pena came to bat in the fourth inning, got into 3-0 count, and gave the crowd hope. But Lester got him to ground into an inning-ending double play.
The Tigers finally got to Lester in the fifth. Jackson led off with a single, Jose Iglesias sacrificed him to second, and Cabrera singled him home.
The Tigers chased Lester in the sixth, and Junichi Tazawa came on to face Pena in same situation Pena had faced in the fourth: two on, one out. This time, Pena smoked Tazawa's first pitch for a run-scoring single, but Jackson then grounded into a double play.
Sanchez's night was over, too. He had thrown 108 pitches and struck out five batters over six innings, and the Red Sox had battered him for those four runs.
After all that, Cabrera had a chance to make up for Sanchez's mistakes. He came to bat in the seventh representing the go-ahead run, with runners on first and third and no outs. The crowd chanted for him, but he grounded into a double play. A run scored, but Boston still led, 4-3. Then Fielder grounded out to a chorus of boos, and the Tigers' best chance in the game slipped away.
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