BOSTON — His sock wasn't bloody. His performance was.

Josh Beckett was October's lion Sunday night, playing with the ache or the pain or whatever it is under his rib cage that he wouldn't acknowledge.

Not that anyone will ever question his heart. It was one of Beckett's other muscles that made him struggle in Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Los Angeles Angels. Today's medical people call it an oblique injury. Back in the day, it was a rib-cage injury or an abdominal strain, two phrases that sound so vague.

Four years ago, you couldn't take your eyes off the blood that soaked Curt Schilling's sock that night in the American League Championship Series. No one had to imagine what was going on inside Captain America's ankle with its torn tendon sheath.

No one questioned Schilling's decision to ask for the ball and take his place on the mound.

No one needed to peer inside Beckett's rib cage to understand the physical hurt he felt. It was his day to pitch. He could have said no, but he wouldn't.

If he won't give in to Alex Rodriguez or Vladimir Guerrero when they face him, he's not giving in to a muscle, no matter how much it screams.

And that's a sound only Beckett could hear, or feel, Sunday night. He physically could throw a baseball, so he did.

Beckett kept the Red Sox in the game against an opponent desperate to stave off the end of its season. It was tied when he left after five innings. The Angels won 5-4 in 12 innings.

Angels third baseman Chone Figgins opened the game with a double.

The Angels lost the first two games of this best-of-three series, and they're too good to believe they were finished.

The Angels loaded the bases, and Beckett worked to contain the damage.

Figgins scored, and no one else. Beckett was bleeding, he was vulnerable. Everyone in Fenway Park knew, and Beckett most of all.

You can point to Josh Beckett and his postseason successes against the Yankees, when he wore a Florida Marlins uniform, and against the Indians and Rockies last season and say they were Beckett at his most dominating.

You can point to Beckett Sunday night and say you saw him at his best, getting outs on guile and guts and the nasty pitch he could summon when needed.

So catcher Mike Napoli does his Manny Ramirez act and deposits two balls over the left-field Green Monster for home runs. The first tied the game 3-3 in the third inning.

The second came in the fifth after Beckett had thrown nearly 100 pitches, and it gave the Angels a 4-3 lead.

Boston tied the game in the bottom of the fifth, but Beckett was done after 106 pitches.

Why was Beckett still in the game?

Why does a fighter come out of his corner for the next round after he was knocked down? Let his manager throw in the towel.

The pedestrians among us don't always understand. Can't rake leaves today, dear. Got a pulled oblique. Got a lower back strain. Can't get off the couch.

Josh Beckett had a game to pitch Sunday. The Red Sox won the first two games of the series. Game 3 wasn't life or death for the good guys.

Says who?

Beckett asked for the baseball. He missed his first turn, giving way to Jon Lester in Game 1 at Anaheim.

Beckett wasn't going to skip another.

Funny, but baseball and football and hockey are so different.

Yet when you watch Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell, Jason Varitek and their teammates play, ask yourself how different they might be from the Patriots.

This is baseball in October, when everything is magnified and so much seems to play out in slow motion.

Josh Beckett asked for the baseball Sunday night, knowing he would bleed.

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:

ssolloway@pressherald.com