Sports Redux: 8-0

The Red Sox clearly felt their happy fans needed a little tension and drama last night. Why not? The Sox have proven so far this year that they can beat the Yankees in blowouts, in pitching masterpieces, in slugfests, in New York, in Boston, for richer, for even richer...why not save the good times for the end just once?

Except for a David Ortiz home run (it's kind of nice not to have to announce each of these with trumpets and confetti anymore), Brad Penny and Cream Cheese Sabathia fired blanks for six innings. Penny struck out 5, C.C. 6. An old-fashioned pitcher's duel. Unfortunately, Penny left the game first, and Manny Delcarmen (who, like an umpire, only gets noticed when he screws up) gave up three runs on RBI doubles to Francisco Cervelli and Alex Rodriguez. Uh oh.

And Sabathia was cruising along. Well, until he gave up an 8th-inning single to Green. And walked Pedroia. And then an RBI single to Drew. Exit Sabathia. Enter Alfred Aceves. Exit Yankee lead. Bay singled in the tying run, Lowell sacrificed in the winning run, Papelbon nailed down a 1-2-3 ninth, and the Yankees probably didn't even bother to change and grab a bite before scrambling to the airport and getting the hell out of town. They have until August 6th to figure out if and how they can beat the Red Sox.

Reaction around the baseball universe: Tony Massarotti compares the way Francona and Giradri have handled their pitching staffs. Dan Shaughnessy has never met a pig pile he won't leap on. New York's John Harper is willing to concede that the Sox may have a mental advantage at this point. Joel Sherman points out that the Yankees will have to win in Boston eventually if they're going anywhere.

So now it's back to interleague play, as the Sox head to Philly to take on the World Champs. And Tito has some decision-making to do, as Ortiz can't DH, so he'll have to figure out whether to take Papi's not-completely-frozen bat out of the lineup. We trust ya, skip.

Elsewhere in baseball, you probably remember Joba Chamberlain's bout with the Cleveland insect invasion in the playoffs a couple of years ago. Last night, it was Cleveland's avian community that screwed up a game, as a base hit scattered a flock of seagulls, then bounced (So Far Away) from Coco Crisp for an Indians win. "We look like we're a bunch of little kids playing on an abandoned lot. There has to be a way to get rid of the seagulls," said one embarrassed Indian. Of course, we must point out that these things happen when you build a park right next to the ocean.

We admit we didn't pay a lot of attention to the MLB draft, since it will probably be years before we ever hear any of these names again, but we can't let it go without mentioning that the Sox took Michael Yastrzemski in the 36th round. He supposedly only fell so many rounds because he wants to play ball in college, and not because he has no chance of living up to his grandfather's legendary legacy. Boston.com does give nice capsules of the rest of the Sox picks.

Stanley Cup, Game Seven tonight! Hope it's better than the inevitable watching the Lakers shoo off Orlando.

Photos courtesy of the Associated Press.