Maybe it's the fact that the Mariners are 24 games under .500. Maybe it's the healing waters of Puget Sound. Whatever it is, after 48 hours in Seattle, the Red Sox look like themselves again.

Daisuke Matsuzaka became the second straight Sox pitcher to blow away the hapless M's. Dice was in complete control through seven innings, striking out six and walking only three. They did get to him for two runs in the eighth, but Okajima(!) got the Sox out of trouble, and Papelbon nailed it down in the ninth for the 4-2 win and save #30.

Offensively, J.D. Drew homered and drove in another run with a sac fly in the fifth. Lowell and Jed Lowrie drive in the other two runs.

But the talk of the series has been, for better or worse, Manny's run-in with the law for jaywalking. Though we'd like to make the "all other crime in Seattle has been solved" joke, we recognize that safety is an important issue, as a Red Sox player was almost seriously injured in a traffic accident last season out there.

The Patriots start training camp this week. It may be a few more weeks, though, before we can start thinking about the Pats without black spots forming at the sides of our eyes.

Flickr photo by Paul Keleher, under a Creative Commons license.