Sports Redux: Rainbeaters

Somehow, in the quagmire and the deluge that took turns drenching the city yesterday, the Red Sox and the Rays found time to get in five innings. But one was really all the Sox needed.

The boys whacked Wade Davis and Dale Thayer for eight runs in the third inning. Victor Martinez, Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz singled in a run apiece, then the Sox scored Youk on a wild pitch, Alex Gonzalez doubled in three more, and Ellsbury drove in the eighth and final run. Youk homered in the fourth, but at that point, the Rays were hoping for either a torrential downpour or clearance to take off and head home, whichever came first.

All this offense made a 5-inning complete-game winner of Josh Beckett, who will gratefully take it after the shakiest month of his Sox career. How, you ask, does a scuffling pitcher keep the nerves away while waiting out a 2-hour rain delay he tries to right his ship? "There was a different football game on every TV that you walked by so we stayed pretty busy," said Beckett. With the Rangers losing to Seattle, the wild-card lead extended to three. The Rays, finally, will not be participating in the last two weeks of the pennant race, it seems.

And with visions of the Red Sox cheering on the college teams of their choice, we'll gently segue into the football results from yesterday. Boston College did a number on Kent State that made us realize it's still not cool to make jokes about Kent State. Nationally, most big schools (Florida, Texas, BYU, Nebraska) devoured their respective patsy opponents, but things didn't go so well for Notre Dame (lost to Michigan) and Oklahoma State (rocked by Houston).

A couple of quick Patriot links from the Globe, since most of the rest of the NFL gets underway today. First, we have Jerod Mayo suddenly finding himself an elder statesman on defense. There's also a Dan Shaughnessy column, wherein he eats up innings by remembering that the Patriots used to be from Boston and not New England.