It was the morning of October 28, 2007 and I woke up extra early today. It was a really important day to the Boston Red Sox and the whole city of Boston. That’s because it was game 4 of the World Series. I had nerves running throughout my whole body because even though we were up 3 games to none, we didn’t want to give any momentum the Rockies. So I had to pitch my best game that I could.
I had time to kill in the morning. So I went out to breakfast with the team. It was David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Josh Beckett, Jonathan Papelbon, and I. We had a great meal at one of the best breakfast places in Denver. So it was about 2 o’clock Pacific Time and we had to go to the ballpark. We were playing at Coors Field in Denver Colorado against the Colorado Rockies. There was not a lot of pressure on us to win this game, but we wanted to win it because if we didn’t then that would give the rockies momentum to the next game. We didn’t want that to happen because before the playoffs started they had won 22 of their last 25 games.
We were in the club house and Terry Francona wanted to give a little speech. He told us all that we just needed to play hard and not to beat ourselves up if make a mistake because then if we worry about that mistake too much we will just keep making more. He came up to me and said “Jon, I just want you to pitch the best you can. As long as you can do that I know we will win.” I was happy he said that because it let down my nerves a lot.
Before the game started I had to go into the bullpen and start to warm up. So I threw around 30 pitches before I told John Farrell, our pitching coach, that I was warmed up. So I went back into the dugout before the game was officially starting. We were all introduced before the national anthem was going to begin. Then it was all ready to start the game.
The game started off with a bang with Jacoby Ellsbury hitting a double off of starting pitcher Aaron Cook and then Dustin Pedroia advancing him to third. David Ortiz would then hit an rbi single to give us the lead and help me. So now it was my turn to face the Colorado rocky hitters. I had to face the top of the lineup, but with the confidence I had I was able to get through the first without allowing a base runner. I pitched all the way to the 6th inning, but I had just thrown my ninety second pitch and walked the batter. So Terry came out told me I pitched a heck of a game and brought in our hard throwing reliever Manny Delcarmen. He was able to come in and get the out we needed. We already had the 2-0 lead going into the 7th inning, but Mike Lowell didn’t think it was enough and hit a homerun to give us a 3-0 lead. However in the bottom of the 7th with a 3-0 lead outfield for the rockies Brad Hawpe hit a solo homerun off of Manny Delcarmen. We were able to get through the 7th inning without allowing another run. We were able to add another run off of pinch hitter Bobby Kielty’s home run. So going into the bottom of the 8th inning with a 4-1 lead. Everyone was getting the hopes it was going to be an easy finish. We brought in reliever Hideki Okajima to pitch the 8th. He got the first out easy, but then allowed a single and a two run shot from Garret Atkins. So now I was getting nervous again because it was now back to being a 1 run ball game. However we were able to bring in Jonathan Papelbon to finish out the 8th. Then going into the bottom of the 9th inning, everyone was praying Jonathan would have a one two three inning. When two outs were gone and there was 2 strikes on the last hitter everyone was on their feet. When we saw Seth Smith swing through strike three there was a frenzy running out to the middle of the diamond because we had just won the world series for the second time. I was happy to be holding my first world series championships with the hope that there will be many more to come.