BOSTON -- Just as the Boston Red Sox planned it. Alex Rodriguez whizzing across the plate in Fenway Park in October playoff games. Five times. Except, ah, it was in a Yankees uniform.
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| Alex Rodriguez, the Red Sox star who never was, scores five times for the Yankees in Game 3.(Getty Images) |
How bad was it?
Rodriguez tied a postseason record with five runs as New York obliterated Boston 212-6. Or something like that. By the seventh inning, who was counting? For you details people out there, the final was 19-8. Or 19(1)8. And now the Red Sox, 86 years between World Series titles and counting, are dead men walking.
Maybe the final slap in the face comes Sunday night. Perhaps the Red Sox won't turn the other cheek until Monday, if they decide to prove in Game 4 that they're even a part of this series.
But the Yankees are headed to their seventh World Series in the past nine seasons. Mark it down. They are better than Boston. They are more complete, they're smarter, they finished three games ahead of the Red Sox this summer for a reason.
How bad is it?
A total of 25 teams have dug themselves a 3-0 hole in a seven-game postseason series. Of those, 20 have been swept. None have ever come back to win. "Forget about history," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. "We're not worried about that. We want to come out and play another good game (Sunday). We're not worried about history."
Nobody expected this. Especially on a night on which New York starter Kevin Brown probably wanted to put a fist through the clubhouse wall -- again. Boston boxed Brown around for five runs -- four earned -- in two innings
And yet ...
The Yankees bounced eight doubles off of Fenway Park's various nooks, crannies and Green Monster, equaling a postseason record. It's been done twice before: by the Chicago White Sox in the 1906 World Series against the Chicago Cubs, and by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1925 World Series against Washington.
The Yankees established a new LCS record with 19 runs scored and the combined 27 runs the two teams scored is an LCS record.
