"I don't think anything compares to it," said Lowell, who called his injury the most painful he has ever endured. "I've never had to take measures to get ready for a game the way I am now. But I don't regret it."
The injury hinders Lowell's swing, and on the two ground balls he hit in Game 1, he had trouble running to first. He looked better in the field but had trouble making the throw to first.
"I spent a lot of time talking to Mike this morning," Francona said. "I don't know what we're going to do. What he's going through right now, he's going to pay for this later. He knows that. He's beating up his body, and as a manager or a teammate I don't know how you can't respect that. He's the ultimate teammate."
Wednesday night lights
Angels right fielder Gary Matthews Jr. said he lost Jacoby Ellsbury's seventh-inning liner in the lights Wednesday night. The ball sailed over his glove and to the wall for a three-base error, but the Angels escaped the inning unscathed.
"It was a low line drive, and it stayed low," said Matthews, who is expected to be replaced in tonight's lineup by Juan Rivera. "Sometimes when you've got to go into the gap, the ball goes into a bank of lights. Sometimes it's high enough that it will come out of the lights, but this one didn't. It happens."
Hang ten
Justin Speier didn't provide much bullpen relief this season -- he went 2-8 with a 5.03 earned-run average and was left off the Angels' division series roster -- but the veteran right-hander, in an attempt to ease the playoff pressure, provided some comic relief Thursday.
As teammates dressed for practice, Speier walked into the clubhouse wearing a full wetsuit, swim fins and carrying a boogie board, shouting, "Is there practice today? Is there practice?"
Said Scioscia: "Your next set of flippers are going to be made out of cement."
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mike.digiovanna@latimes.com
kevin.baxter@latimes.com
