When Bostonist were kids, pitching the tennis ball against the chimney for five hours straight, we often dreamed of the day we'd get called up to the Red Sox, in the heat of a pennant race, tabbed for a sudden start, and then go out and throw a no-hitter in our big-league debut.

Clay Buchholz is a slacker. It took him until his SECOND Major League start to have a piece of memorabilia suitable for the Hall of Fame.

But, damn, what a ballgame. The Sox' bats pounded the Orioles, so Buchholz was free from worrying about the final score, and could keep his eyes on the prize. Three walks and a hit-batsman. That's it. Jason Varitek called an absolutely brilliant game, encouraging Clay to mix up his heater, his curve (which makes us giddy), and his changeup (pardon us while we get a tissue), completely flummoxing the hapless Baltimores.

Every no-hitter, they say, has a play in it that should be a hit, but the defense rises to the occasion. This one had, by our unofficial count, four. Honorable mention goes to the footrace to first Clay won early on. Bronze medal goes to Clay as well, for stabbing the hot comebacker to the mound off Jay Payton to end the eighth. Silver medal goes to Coco Crisp, for chasing down a couple of scary shots into the zip code of center field.

But the gold medal, and, in the postgame frenzy we consider it the greatest defensive play in Boston history, goes to Dustin Pedroia. Miguel Tejada led off the seventh with a routine base hit up the middle. Oh, well, nice try, Clay, congratulations. But all of a sudden, that routine base hit was in Pedroia's glove; then, somehow (MIT physicists are trying to puzzle this out), Dustin got up and made a perfect throw to get Tejada at first. And we realize sometimes people use the word "perfect" a little loosely; not here. Pedroia made a perfect play.

Props to Terry Francona, for doing the right thing, and focusing on history, even when Clay went way over his pitch count. Props to Josh Beckett, who looked happier on the bench than anyone else, and in the postgame pigpile, yelled to Buchholz, "You did better than Schilling!" And big props to announcer Don Orsillo, who we know was tempted to blurt out what was going on (like when he ruined a no-hit bid by Wakefield a few years ago), but properly couched his language with terms like "the ONLY baserunners" and "the second column". Well played, Don.

The bar has been set high for Jon Lester, who will start this afternoon in the series finale. Also, other stuff happened in the sports world yesterday, but who cares? The Red Sox threw a no-hitter!

Photo by Winslow Townson from ESPN.