If this game was scripted, it veered wildly off course several times. What looked like a routine Angels win turned out not to be that at all. What looked like a classic, late-inning Yankees comeback was also an illusion.
After the Angels got those four first-inning runs, neither team scored until the seventh when they combined to score nine runs. A funny game, indeed.
"We have to keep playing all the outs,'' Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "It's not a forgiving team over there.''
After Chone Figgins started the game with a walk, the Angels turned the next four strikes they saw from Yankees starter A.J. Burnett into hits - a ringing double to right-center by Bobby Abreu, a ground-shot single up the middle by Torii Hunter, a rocketed double to left-center by Vladimir Guerrero, and finally, a single by Kendry Morales.
For a team that had scored 10 runs in the first four ALCS games and had not scored a single run in the first three innings of their first seven 2009 playoff games, this was a major breakthrough. And with their best pitcher, John Lackey, on the mound, the Angels were finally in control of something.
And then they weren't.
Rightfielder Nick Swisher flew out to center to start the Yankees' seventh and to left to end it. It was what went down in between that really looked like it would send the Yankees to the World Series.
Lackey left with the bases loaded and two outs, leading 4-0. Three batters prior, it looked like he might have had Jorge Posada struck out on a 3-2 pitch. It was either just at the knees or just low. It was ruled just low for a walk. Lackey then walked Derek Jeter on four pitches before getting Johnny Damon to fly out weakly to left.
Scioscia decided that Lackey's 104 pitches were enough. If he knew what would go down next, he might have reconsidered.
