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Fennelly column: Lowell Comes Out Of The Shadows

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Martin Fennelly/The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 26, 2007

BOSTON - He has lived a good baseball life in the shadows. But now the World Series lights are shining. Mike Lowell can't hide.

Good for him. Good for us.

That was him putting a first-inning throwing error behind him. That was him winning with his bat, his legs and his heart.

That was Mike Lowell hustling, racing from first to third in the fourth, diving headlong, safe, and later coming home on a sacrifice fly to tie the Colorado Rockies.

And that was Mike Lowell - the man the Marlins couldn't wait to get rid of two years ago, the man the Red Sox thought of trading this season and who they might not re-sign after it - driving in the winning run with a fifth-inning double in Game 2 as the Sox took a 2-0 Series lead with a 2-1 victory.

It was a big night for pitchers, Game 2. Winner Curt Schilling was his usual postseason self, giving up one run in five-plus innings before giving way to two startling relief turns by Hideki Okajima (four strikeouts) and Jonathan Papelbon, who picked off Rockies runner Matt Holliday to end the eighth before closing out in the ninth with a 99-mph strikeout fastball. Spectacular.

You returned to the less-spectacular, but just as important.

You returned to Mike Lowell.

"He's been a horse for us all year," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.

Batting fifth, playing a great third base, the secret weapon was the best position player on his club this season, with a career year, a .324 average, 21 home runs and 120 RBIs, more RBIs than the famous men hitting directly in front of him, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. Only Thursday might have been his last Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

Into the shadows - again?

"The limelight doesn't matter," Lowell said this week. "It doesn't seem like I'm having trouble with it."

Speaks The Language
The man was a three-time All Star in the shadows. He has driven in 100 runs three times in the shadows. He won a World Series ring with the Marlins in 2003. The man has beaten testicular cancer in the shadows, too.

His teammates love him. All Lowell has been since arriving in Boston last season is invaluable - a tireless worker, a favorite in the clubhouse, a clutch hitter and fielder liked by all, able to reach anyone, including the young Dominicans players because he speaks Spanish.

Lowell, 33, speaks a universal baseball language.

"The perfect teammate," Ortiz has said.

So where's the respect?

After an awful season with Florida in 2005 (.236, eight homers, 58 RBI) the Marlins gave up. The perfect teammate was a throw-in in the trade that brought right-handed ace Josh Beckett to Boston. The Marlins wouldn't deal Beckett unless someone took Lowell off their hands.

"They needed Josh Beckett," Lowell said of the Red Sox before Game 2. "They needed to get a top right-handed pitcher, and I don't think the Red Sox after the '05 season were like, Lowell has to be in this deal for us to take Beckett."

He smiled. Everyone laughed.

The Red Sox looked to move the perfect teammate earlier this season. Ironically, they craved Rockies first baseman Todd Helton. What reportedly held up the deal for the Sox wasn't the thought of losing Lowell - it was the not wanting to give up pitcher Manny Delcarmen and picking up too much of Helton's contract.

Now the perfect teammate has maybe had too perfect a season. He's a free agent after this season. He wants to stay in Boston, but he'll need bigger bucks. The Red Sox might be unwilling to give Lowell a long contract, though he deserves it. They might move Kevin Youklis to third and shop for a first baseman, or talk to - gulp - A-Rod if he bugs out of New York.

The shadow lives.

Where's the respect?

Lowell is hitting well over .300 this postseason. He has 12 RBIs, second to Ramirez. He was there for the Sox again Thursday, just like all year.

"That's the best way to sum up Mikey Lowell," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "He gives you everything he has every day … You try to give him an off day, he wants to fight you."

He'll fight for you, too.

The Ultimate Professional
Lowell's game-winning double backed up Curt Schilling, in maybe his last start as a Red Sox pitcher before he joins the Devil Rays (insert laughter here). Before Game 1, Schilling spoke about the man on third.

"Well, I mean, as classy a teammate as I've ever had," Schilling said. "On and off the field, he's a man, a professional. I have no idea what it takes to play every day in the big leagues, the physical and mental grind that it is, but I know he is as good at it as anybody I have ever seen."

The men who followed Schilling to the mound, Okajima and Papelbon, made Schilling's win and Lowell's RBI stand up in their own spectacular way. The Boston crowd stood and screamed.

By the end of the night the front of the third baseman's uniform was dirty from effort. Respect or no, shadows or no, that's Mikey Lowell.

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