No Youk. No Pedroia. No Problem.

An interesting night for both the Red Sox and Mets on Tuesday. Both teams trailed for their entire games, and both came back late to pull out wins neither looked like they would get.

I watched the Mets come from 3-0 down in the eighth against Atlanta, score twice in that inning, tie it in the ninth and win it on a bases loaded walk. (Is it me or have we had a rash of bases loaded walks to win games this year?) And then out west, Justin Masterson was on the ropes early against the LA Angels (I will never, ever use that "of Anaheim" nonsense when writing about them), and it looked like he might not survive the first few innings. He allowed just one run and the Angels left five on in the first two innings. J.D. Drew went deep in the second as it became a 1-1 game. Masterson gutted out six innings, allowing two runs. I look forward to his return to the pen, where he will be more valuable.

In the third, Masterson threw a pitch that went behind Torii Hunter, and ump Jim Joyce warned both benches. Masterson later said it just got away, but the Angels thought it was some kind of retribution for the bench-clearer the teams had last month, where Hunter got tossed. Nothing further came of it, and it will be interesting if the Angels do anything further about it in this series.

L.A. scored another run to grab the lead in the fourth, and itappeared the Sox were about to tie it in the 7th, as David Ortiz lifted a fly to left with Jacoby Ellsbury on third and one out. But Juan Rivera gunned a strike home to nail Ellsbury. And to add salt in the wounds, the Angels got a run off Manny Delcarmen to make it 3-1 in the bottom of the inning.

But the Red Sox staged a rally in the eighth, as David Ortiz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to make it 3-2 and Jason Bay hit a grounder to second to score the tying run.

In the ninth, it was a double to right by Jason Varitek scoring J.D. Drew who had singled to bring in the tie-breaking run. Jonathan Papelbon struck out Torii Hunter with a man on second to end it and give the Red Sox a much-needed win to open the six-game West Coast trip, the final one of the year for the club. (Always nice to get those 3000 mile trips out west over early.)

Kevin Youkilis was placed on the 15-day DL last night with that nagging side problem. He was put on retroactively to May 5, so he maybe back in time for the start of the Toronto series next week. And Dustin Pedroia also missed last night's game with the groin strain, but he will most likely play in tonight's game.

Congratulations to Red and Denton over at Surviving Grady for their win in the New England Sports Blog Awards. My site was actually put in nomination for it, but didn't make the final cut. Ah, well. Glad to see those goofballs take home some hardware.