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Youkilis' walk-off blast lifts Red Sox past Cardinals

Jun 23, 2008 - 12:25 AM By Mike Petraglia PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BOSTON (Ticker) -- The St. Louis Cardinals nearly managed to do the improbable at Fenway Park, but Kevin Youkilis refused to let it happen.

Youkilis' second homer of the day gave the Boston Red Sox a 5-3 victory in 13 innings over the Cardinals on Sunday, avoiding their first home sweep of the season.

"That's probably the best feeling about it," Youkilis said. "You don't want to get swept and winning that ballgame."

Dustin Pedroia had four hits and J.D. Drew threw out a runner at the plate in the top of the 13th for the Red Sox, who have not been swept at Fenway since August 18-21. Boston entered the weekend with the best home mark in baseball and improved to 29-9 at Fenway.

With St. Louis down to its sixth reliever of the game in the 13th, Mike Lowell greeted rookie righthander Mike Parisi (0-3) with a line single off the top of the left field wall. Youkilis followed by driving a 3-1 pitch over the "Green Monster" to give the Red Sox the win.

"You can't beat it," Youkilis said. "I think it was even more exciting when you have a 13-inning game. You just want to get out of here. That always makes it a lot better of a home run."

Aaron Miles matched a career high with five hits for the Cardinals, who fell to 4-5 vs. the American League this season.

"He had a great game, truly great game," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said of Miles.

Boston blew chances in the 10th, 11th and 12th when Jacoby Ellsbury, Lowell and Pedroia opened each inning with doubles but were stranded.

"Just a hellacious game," La Russa added. "It's one of those things that makes you enjoy this level of competition. Both clubs had chances for a lot of heroics to get something going. A lot of heroics to stop them. What a great competition."

Lowell opened the 13th with a single off the "Green Monster" before Youkilis ended the 4-hour, 25-minute marathon by driving an offering from Parisi into the third row of seats above the left field wall for his 13th homer of the season.

"I knew I hit it really well and I thought it would get out but you never know here sometimes, especially in left-center field. It felt good off the bat," Youkilis said. "I just hoped Mikey was running as hard as he could in case it didn't get out, but I thought I hit it well enough that it would get out. It's iffy sometimes here with the wind, you didn't know where it would go today. But the wind blowing out might have helped."

The Cardinals left the bases loaded in the 11th and had Chris Duncan thrown out at the plate by Drew in the 13th.

"It seemed like there was a rally every inning and no one could push that run across. Both teams thought they were going to (be) showering in five minutes a bunch of times tonight, but it didn't happen," Miles said.

Adam Kennedy singled off winner Javier Lopez (2-0) with one out and Duncan on second in the 13th. Drew threw a perfect one-hop strike to Jason Varitek, who ducked Duncan and tagged the runner at the plate before Duncan had a chance to knock the ball free.

"When it went through, yeah, with J.D.'s arm and Duncan on second," Varitek said. "Maybe if it were a burner, it might not have been a play but J.D. got off a real good throw. I had just enough time to get a little bit lower and try and absorb the hit."

"Just catch it and throw it," added Drew. "He hit the ball hard enough to be able field it on a nice run and throw it (past) Youkilis. I honestly didn't know if he'd send him or not. I was surprised to see him going and it wound up that it was a nice hop to Tek and he had time to duck under."

St. Louis starter Joel Pineiro was denied his first win since April 29 despite allowing seven hits and just two runs in seven innings.

Boston starter Jon Lester was taken off the hook after yielding nine hits and two runs over 7 1/3 innings. Both allowed just four hits over the first five innings.

Lopez got the final two outs in the 13th a for the win after Craig Hansen struck out three in 1 2/3 perfect frames.

"We did it in true Red Sox fashion seems like. Just hang in here, battle and just wait for a pitcher, get him in a good count and our hitters did that and Youkilis took care of the rest," Lopez said.

The Cardinals finally broke through in the sixth when Brendan Ryan opened with his second double in as many at-bats, a sinking liner that just eluded the diving J.D. Drew in right-center. Brian Barton followed with an opposite-field double down the right field line, scoring Ryan.

After Barton stole third, Ryan Ludwick drove home his team-leading 56th run with a single to left, putting St. Louis up, 2-0.

The Red Sox cut the Cardinals' lead in half when Youkilis lofted an 0-1 fastball from Pineiro into the second row of "Green Monster" seats in left with two outs and none on in the seventh.

Boston tied the game in the eighth thanks to some bad footing. Coco Crisp led off by driving Pineiro's pitch to center. Cardinals center fielder Rick Ankiel slipped while chasing it and the ball rolled all the way to the wall, allowing Crisp to reach third with a leadoff triple.

Chris Perez came on and allowed a sacrifice fly by Julio Lugo to tie the game, 2-2. Perez walked Drew, Manny Ramirez and Mike Lowell in succession to force in Pedroia with the go-ahead run.

Jonathan Papelbon was one strike away from his 22nd save in the ninth when he allowed a pinch-hit double to Adam Kennedy over the head of Crisp, who initially broke in but could not recover in time. The two-out double scored Duncan with the tying run and gave Papelbon his fourth blown save of the season in 25 tries.

The game was delayed 49 minutes by rain at the start.