Sports Redux: Since Staff's Shaky, Sox Sluggers Steal Spotlight

This is a much better result for Daisuke. Instead of him pitching brilliantly and losing due to poor run support, he pitched a very average game, but was helped by a barrage of Red Sox home runs, including a team-record four solo shots in a row, courtesy of Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek. Who was worried about Manny and 'Tek's slow starts?

That was all well and good, but it was Lowell's second home run, a 3-run shot in the seventh (which landed an inch above the wall), that won the ballgame. That put Daisuke in position to collect the win; Okajima, Donelly and Papelbon (which sounds like the world's most bizarre law firm) sealed the deal. Credit Dustin Pedroia for a great catch in there, too. That's a sweep of the Yankees, if you're following along at home. We know the Yanks are about likely to stay buried as Jason Voorhees, but the more distance the Sox build now, the better.

The Blue Jays are in town for a pair, starting tonight with a rematch. Tim Wakefield mastered Toronto last week; the Jays and Ohka get another crack at him tonight.

In non-Red Sox home run news, Barry Bonds hit #740, meaning he's only 15 shy of Hank Aaron. That mid-June series where the Giants are in Boston is starting to look verrrry interesting. How good would it be for baseball to have Barry break the record in Fenway, and make his victory lap to the tune of 36,000 booing lustily? If Bostonist were to catch the record-breaking baseball (we don't have tickets yet, but we're easy to get a hold of), we'd announce in a press conference that we were going to donate the ball to Cooperstown and then send a volleyball instead. A little inexplicably-giant-head humor there.

Guess the NBA didn't get the memo about messing with Texas. The Lone Star State's one-two punch of Western Conference favorites got stunned Sunday, with the Spurs losing to Denver and the Mavericks losing to Golden State. Golden State! You may remember that of Dallas' 15 losses this season, 3 of them came at the Warriors' hands. Who doesn't love a good #8 over #1 upset?