8:33 p.m. - Sizemore successfully steals second on the first pitch to Hafner. Hafner, though, ends up striking out. The knuckler is definitely dancing so far tonight. If Wakefield can stay away from the walks, he could be pretty good.

8:36 p.m. - Martinez, also hitting right-handed, hits it well but lines out to right field.

8:37 p.m. - I don't think it means much, but the first inning was Byrd's best this year (.244 average against, 12 runs in 31 starts) and the second was his worst (.346 average against, 23 runs).

8:41 p.m. - Ramirez falls behind 0-2 before singling through the left side of the infield. He's hit in 14 straight ALCS games, a record. Pete Rose holds the overall LCS record at 15 games.

8:42 p.m. - Lowell can't do more than tap an 0-1 pitch, though at least he hit it weakly enough to stay out of what could have been the eighth double play hit into in the series. Manny advances to second.

8:44 p.m. - Drew looks awful on a strikeout. He's really justifying his reputation right now. The Red Sox need the lefties to hit Byrd to win tonight, and the two best have already struck out on a total of seven pitches.

8:46 p.m. - Crisp hit .297 in 2004 and .300 in 2005. You'd certainly never know it to look at him now. He strikes out looking on three pitches. The third one could have been a ball, but it looks like FOX has put their strike zone graphic on ice.

8:50 p.m. - Wakefield makes very quick work of Peralta, striking him out on three pitches. We've already seen more three-pitch strikeouts than anyone should have expected.

8:52 p.m. - An eight-pitch inning for Wakefield, as Lofton grounds out and Blake strikes out on four pitches. Wakefield has four K's already. His season high was eight.

8:55 p.m. - Mirabelli is the recipient of Byrd's initial first-pitch ball of the night. He flies out with a full count, but he alone made Byrd throw more pitches than he did in the first inning as a whole.

8:59 p.m. - Lugo takes two called strikes. He has no choice but to swing at the third pitch and taps weakly to the right side.

9:01 p.m. - FOX finally unleashes their Trax for the first time tonight, though it was on a swinging strike. I was beginning to think they had received a note from the commish's office about not making the ump look bad.

9:02 p.m. - Back-to-back singles for Pedroia and Youkilis. Pedroia reached for his on a 2-2 count. Youkilis muscled up on the first pitch and lined it to left. Ortiz up. Red Sox desperately need a big hit.

9:03 p.m. - Ortiz goes after the first pitch, but all he can do is foul it off. He did the same to the second. Both were poor swings from Big Papi. The third pitch is outside for a ball. Fourth pitch is another foul to the left side. It's like he's been caught in between on every swing. The fifth pitch is a grounder to the shortstop on the right side of second base. Inning over.

9:09 p.m. - Wakefield has worse command of his fastball than of his knuckler tonight. Gutierrez walks on a close knuckler to begin the bottom of the third.

9:13 p.m. - Shoppach nearly falls down on his strikeout. Gutierrez didn't attempt to steal second. He might now.

9:14 p.m. - Mirabelli may have cost Wakefield a strike on an 0-1 pitch with his odd lunge at the knuckler. A high knuckler gets called on a 3-1 count, which more than makes up for it. Sizemore grounds out with a full count. Gutierrez advances to second.

9:17 p.m. - Cabrera's routine fly to center ends the third. Still no score.

9:25 p.m. - Manny flies to center. Lowell hits one that would have grabbed some wall at Fenway. At Jacobs Field, it was just a flyout to left-center. Drew drives one into center for a single and may have been picked off, before the first pitch to Coco, though he didn't get the call. Coco lines into right for the third out. That's seven hitters in a row that have made solid contact versus Byrd. However, the Red Sox still haven't scored.

9:32 p.m. - Wakefield fans Hafner for his sixth K. Martinez delivers a liner to center for out No. 2. Peralta doubles off the wall in left. That's Cleveland's first hit.

9:33 p.m. - Lofton strands Peralta with a grounder to first. Scoreless after four.

9:42 p.m. - Mirabelli snaps a string of well hit balls by swinging and missing on what was probably ball four. Lugo stings one, but the ball just hanged there for Lofton to grab in left field. Routine grounder to short from Pedroia. He really busted it down the line in case the occasionally lazy Peralta loafed a bit, but Peralta was solid this time.

9:45 p.m. - Blake, always at his most dangerous with none on, homers to start the fifth. Including this one, 14 of his 19 homers have come with the bases empty. He hits 120 points higher with none on than with RISP.

9:46 p.m. - Gutierrez seemed to have no idea what he was swinging at, but he lines one over Lowell anyway. HBP on a ball that Shoppach made no effort to get out of the way of. Always a big pet peave of mine.

9:50 p.m. - Sizemore grounds into a fielder's choice. No chance for a double play as fast as he is. Runners at the corners, one out.

9:51 p.m. - Youkilis bobbles a foul ball a few times before it drops. It would have been a sac fly had he caught it. For some reason. Youks doesn't get an error on the play, though he clearly should have had it.

9:52 p.m. - Cabrera's soft liner gets knocked down by Wakefield for an infield hit. If Wakefield lets it go through, it's at least one and probably two outs. That's the way the series is going for Boston. 2-0 Indians.

10:00 p.m. - Hafner fans for the second out, but Martinez singles into left field to make it 3-0 and Wakefield gets taken out. That's a real shame. He's pitched well enough to get four outs this evening, and it's not all his fault that Martinez managed to thread the needle between Lowell, who was late to react, and Lugo.

10:02 p.m. - If the Red Sox lose this one -- and the way they're hitting, they probably will -- the organization will get slammed even more for not pitching Beckett. Still, they made the right choice. Beckett, Schilling and Dice-K all have better chances of winning the next three games while working on extra rest, and Wakefield was quite good tonight. A lame HBP, a blown foul popup and his own mistake throwing his arm out at a soft liner doomed him in the fifth. It wasn't bad pitching.

10:03 p.m. - Delcarmen in. Peralta hits a three-run homer to make it 6-0. It's a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but this will be five earned runs for Wakefield, when he should have only gotten charged with two.

10:05 p.m. - Lofton singles.

10:06 p.m. - You are such an idiot, Tim McCarver.

10:07 p.m. - I mean, is there anyone out there besides McCarver really stupid enough to think that a leadoff homer doesn't lead to bigger innings than a leadoff walk? One results in a run. The other results in a man on first base. Just a shred of common sense would be appreciated.

10:09 p.m. - Lofton steals. Blake hits a pop to shallow center that somehow falls in front of Crisp, whose only value is his defense. The Red Sox didn't follow my rule here: Blake never hits the ball hard with RISP. Crisp probably shouldn't have started the play on the warning track. 7-0 Indians.

10:18 p.m. - Shoppach finally strikes out to end Boston's nightmare inning. 7-0 after five. The Indians have scored in just four of the last 19 innings, yet their about to take a 3-1 series lead, as the Red Sox have gone scoreless in 18 innings during the same timeframe.

10:21 p.m. - Youkilis homers on an 0-2 pitch. Talk about too little, too late.

10:24 p.m. - Ortiz makes it back-to-back homers. It might be a 2-2 game right now if Youkilis caught the foul ball or Wakefield didn't stick his glove out. On the other hand, Byrd might have been better without the long break and the Red Sox hitters might not be as relaxed as they clearly were in those two at-bats.

10:27 p.m. - Byrd done after allowing two runs in five-plus innings. The quick hook seems like a good idea, but the Indians are asking quite a bit of Jensen Lewis here. He pitched in each of the first three games, throwing 2 1/3 innings in Game 2. He was used to get just one out last night.

10:30 p.m. - Yes, Joe, the three-run homer was quite important. Keen analysis there.

10:32 p.m. - Back-to-back-to-back. Manny takes Lewis deep. Lewis looked like he was in control after two really good fastballs, but he just couldn't put him away. Perez up in the pen.

10:34 p.m. - Lowell grounds to third for the first out of the inning. Now it gets a whole lot easier for Lewis.

10:35 p.m. - Drew flies out to left, and Crisp pops out. The Red Sox simply can't put together an extended rally while getting nothing from five spots in the order.

10:43 p.m. - Lester takes over even though the Red Sox have closed the gap a bit. Leadoff walk from Sizemore. Cabrera gets ahead 2-0, but he's charged with strike one after failing to get the time call when he steps out of the box. He strikes out on a 2-2 pitch.

10:47 p.m. - Hafner becomes the second Indian tonight to nearly fall down while striking out. Remarkably, he's fanned in all four of his at-bats.

10:48 p.m. - Sizemore goes to second after Youkilis fails to handle Lester's pickoff attempt. It's Youkilis' first error as a first baseman in 2007.

10:50 p.m. - Martinez flies out to center. 7-3 Indians after six.

10:54 p.m. - A lucky single from Varitek after he looks bad on the first two pitches.

10:56 p.m. - Lugo hits into Boston's eighth double play of the series. He's 5-for-23 with no RBI in the postseason. Fortunately for Lugo, Drew will continue to get the majority of the criticism that comes with having the bigger contract.

10:58 p.m. - Cabrera makes a great leaping catch of Pedroia's liner. If Cabrera had hit that at Pedroia, Dustin probably would have come up a foot short to catching it.

11:00 p.m. - The Indians now have the same exact situation they were in last night, only with twice the lead. They could leave Lewis in to face Youkilis to begin the eighth and then go to Perez for Ortiz and Betancourt for Ramirez. However, last night they had Betancourt start the inning. They might as well do it again. If everything works out, Borowski will again get to face the lousy half of Boston's lineup.

11:03 p.m. - Yeah, technically Peralta did have more homers than any AL shortstop. Guillen hit a couple of his at first base and DH.

11:06 p.m. - Lofton argues strike three. He definitely had a case there, though it wasn't an awful call. With that as the biggest controversy, Paul Emmel has done a nice job behind the plate tonight.

11:08 p.m. - A clean seventh for Lester. The Red Sox must now be regretting not having him start the 11th inning in Game 2.

11:10 p.m. - I bet the people behind Date Movie and Epic Movie are really upset that The Comebacks used everything they were going to do in Sports Movie.

11:12 p.m. - Betancourt in. Youkilis flies out to the edge of the warning track in right. Huge out for the Indians.

11:14 p.m. - Ortiz pops out on an 0-2 pitch.

11:15 p.m. - Ramirez just misses one and it turns into a harmless fly to left. 7-3 going to the bottom of the eighth.

11:18 p.m. - So the Red Sox are going to need to win three straight to advance. They could be favored in all three with Beckett pitching Thursday and the final two games at Fenway. Still, winning all three is a tall order. The only way it happens is if they finally get something from the bottom of the lineup.

11:26 p.m. - Lester works his third scoreless inning of the night. It looks like Betancourt is coming back out for Cleveland. That's almost good news for the Red Sox. They're not going to win tonight anyway, and having a tired Betancourt would help their chances of winning Thursday.

11:29 p.m. - Betancourt still in. Lowell pops out. He's had a particularly ugly night. I won't say he should have gotten to Martinez's single that extended the fifth, but he sure didn't react very quickly to the grounder off the bat.

11:33 p.m. - I just mussed a pitch because FOX 10 Mobile/Pensacola decided to cut to Everybody Loves Raymond. Nicely done.

11:34 p.m. - J.D. Drew pops out. I should just have that copied to my clipboard at all times.

11:35 p.m. - Crisp hits his second hard liner of the night right into Travis Hafner's glove. Game over.

11:36 p.m. - Casey Blake as player of the game? Peralta had a three-run homer and a double. Blake had a solo homer and a popup that turned into an RBI single. It's a silly thing to argue, I know, but both Peralta and Byrd deserve it more.