Sports Redux: Slouching Towards Anaheim

Well, the Red Sox are officially on a roll. They're preparing for the playoffs by being swept twice in a row. And they did it with style last night, serving up another round of meatball sandwiches to give their guests from Toronto an 11-0 win.

What to talk about? The makeshift lineup (your 2-through-6 hitters included Josh Reddick, Rocco Baldelli, George Kotteras and David Ortiz, who must have been wondering when he got traded to the Pirates)? The one inning pitched by Dusty Brown, who gave up two hits and a run and fit right in on this week's staff? Or Roy Halladay, who carved through the aforementioned makeshift lineup with just three hits in the CG shutout?

Or should we start preparing our elegy for Tim Wakefield, who gamely pitched through pain and a possible champagne hangover, lasting just three innings before walking off the Fenway mound for probably the last time this year, and maybe (sniff) ever? Surviving Grady says everything we wanted to say about Wake and his legacy here, but really, thinking about the Red Sox without him isn't something we're prepared to do just yet.

There's really only one race left in baseball, and the decided advantage goes to Detroit, who just may have fended off Minnesota to claim the AL Central. The Tigers are three games up with four to go, and the Twins still have to face Detroit once more and Zack Greinke over the weekend.

The Globe looks at the new faces in new places as the Bruins launch their 09-10 season tonight against the Capitals. The B's know they have "unfinished business", as Patrice Bergeron put it, to recover from the way their great 08-09 season came to a premature end at Carolina's hands. Coach Claude Julien on the new lineups: "I’ve got a couple of extra buttons to play with."

The NBA is dealing with the referee lockout, declining attendance and polarization of the league's franchises the only way they know how: by banning Twitter from their players during and immediately after games. The league also won't let the guys on the bench stand at all unless it's to check in or to "spontaneously react to a notable play [and] immediately [sit] down on the bench afterward" (henceforth referred to as the "Screw You, Ubuntu" Rule"). The next step will be to ban egotistical young men from the league and replace them with sturdy, reliable businessmen.

Photo: Elise Amendola/Associated Press.