BOSTON -- He was so excited his heart was "beating faster." He was so nervous, he was "trying not to shake so bad."
Was it John Lackey, who took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against one of baseball's most prolific lineups Tuesday night, who was feeling so stressed?
Nope, it was catcher Jeff Mathis, who was on the receiving end of Lackey's brilliant effort that fell two outs short of history.
Dustin Pedroia broke up Lackey's no-hit bid with a one-out single to left field in the ninth, and Kevin Youkilis ended his shutout bid with a two-run homer, but Lackey was able to finish off the Boston Red Sox in a 6-2 Angels victory in Fenway Park.
Lackey's 120-pitch complete game, in which he struck out four and walked two, gave the Angels their seventh straight regular-season win over the team that has a nine-game playoff win streak against the Angels.
The Angels have won 11 of 13, and they padded their major league-best overall (66-40) and road (35-19) records. They are 4-1 on what was supposed to be a grueling 10-game trip to Baltimore, Boston and New York.
Yet, their sense of achievement, and the excitement and anticipation surrounding the arrival of slugger Mark Teixeira, who was acquired from Atlanta earlier Tuesday, was tinged with disappointment.
"I can't even explain it," Mathis said, when asked how he felt after Pedroia's single. "I don't want to say I was crushed, but it was a tough feeling."
And a weird one.
"It's like there's a white elephant in the dugout," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "Nobody wants to talk to John. Nobody is mentioning the no-hitter, but we all knew there was an opportunity for John to do something special. You get a hit into left field, your heart drops a little bit. You're disappointed."
Lackey had no regrets.
"I gave up the hit with a curve -- that's my best pitch," said Lackey, who improved to 9-2 with a 2.93 earned-run average. "I can sleep on that."
Most games against the Red Sox leave Lackey tossing and turning -- he had a 2-6 record and 6.01 ERA against Boston and was 1-4 with a 7.46 ERA in Fenway Park before Tuesday.
Lackey also gave up 20 earned runs and 35 hits, including six home runs, in 23 2/3 innings of his previous four starts, admitting he was going through "a little dead-arm phase."
But there was plenty of life in that arm Tuesday, as Lackey threw first-pitch strikes to 21 of 32 batters and allowed only two baserunners through eight, on a hit batsman and a walk.
