Folks...the late season magic has arrived.

The Red Sox seemed poised for another near-sweep, so close and yet so far. Daisuke Matsuzaka, the master at digging then getting out of holes, had gotten the Sox down 4-0. The seventh-inning stretch had arrived. (By the way, Bostonist was at Fenway the other night and noted that fans now have to be reminded to stand up for the seventh-inning stretch, but leap up out of their seats when it's "Sweet Caroline" time. Sigh.) If only we had a red-hot plucky 2B to start a rally.

Wait, we do! Dustin Pedroia, who's 56-for-53 since mid-August, homered. Rattled, the Orioles then loaded the bases and walked in a run. Halfway home. "Sweet Caroline" came and went. Mark Kotsay tied the game in the eighth with a two-run triple. The Orioles bullpen, which makes us feel better about ours, had to somehow get through the ninth.

Game-winning homer? Dramatics? Nah, the Sox wanted to manufacture this one, and manufacture they did. Alex Cora singled. Coco Crisp tried to bunt him over to second, but the bunt took a friendly hop, stayed fair, and everyone was safe. Ellsbury decided that bunting looked fun, so he tried it. Baltimore pitcher Jim Miller tried for the out at third, but threw the ball towards the umpire, who was not on third base. E-1, Cora trots home, the Sox head to Texas only three back of Tampa Bay.

The Rays lost again to the Yankees, in a game that was delayed for two minutes while MLB got to try its new replay system for the first time, upholding an A-Rod homer. Elsewhere in baseball, the Marlins had an afternoon game for some reason, and about 600 people were in the stands at first pitch. Living as we do in a city where you could get 600 people to come out at 6 AM to watch Pedroia and Youkilis play pepper, it makes us wonder if expansion was really a good idea. And our campaign to move the Marlins to Somerville continues...

Dan Shaughnessy wonders what life would be like if the Patriots had won the Super Bowl. We wonder what life would be like if our city had an award-winning front-page sports columnist who actually made an effort once in a while.

The NBA apparently is working with "Generic Logos R Us", as they unveiled the name and completely uninspiring logo of the Oklahoma City Thunder. No shots of the uniforms yet, but you can buy pink T-shirts. UniWatch is underwhelmed, to say the least.

Photo by Stephen Senne/Associated Press.