BOSTON — With their second-most dramatic postseason comeback in franchise history Sunday afternoon and the New York Yankees' division series-clinching win over the Minnesota Twins hours later, the Angels went from the haunted to the hunted.
Many of the questions posed to the Angels before their division series with Boston were of a mental, even mystical, nature: Are the Red Sox in your heads? How do you break the "hex" the Red Sox have over you?
The Angels disposed of those queries and the Red Sox -- with Sunday's comeback from a 5-1 fifth-inning deficit for a 7-6 victory in Fenway Park that completed the first playoff sweep in club history.
Juan Rivera hit a two-run single in the eighth inning, and Vladimir Guerrero's two-run single capped a three-run ninth for a win that nearly rivaled Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, when the Angels rallied from a 5-0 deficit in the seventh inning to beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5.
Now it's on to the American League Championship Series against New York -- Game 1 of the best-of-seven series is Friday in Yankee Stadium -- and it will be the Yankees, of all teams, who will have to answer the same questions that grew wearisome for the Angels.
The Yankees may be baseball royalty, the franchise with 26 World Series trophies, but the Angels have won both of their playoff series against the Yankees, eliminating them in 2002 and 2005 division series.
The Angels are the only team with a winning record (79-66, including playoff games) against the Yankees since 1996. And they are 33-20 in their last 53 games against the Yankees, including a three-game sweep in Anaheim before the All-Star break.
The Yankees are girding for battle.
"We are going to have a nasty series," pitcher Andy Pettitte told reporters Sunday night. "It's going to be a war with us and the Angels, but we're looking forward to it."
Before the Angels played a makeup game in Yankee Stadium on Sept. 14, their clubhouse was filled with New York-based reporters peppering them with questions about why they've been so successful against the Yankees.
Those same questions were posed in the home clubhouse, where Manager Joe Girardi went so far as to characterize the makeup game as "a very important game."
The Yankees, with their $201-million payroll and cast of superstars, had the best record in baseball at the time and were well on their way to the AL East title, and one game against the Angels in September is "very important"?
