As good as their starters have been all week, the Red Sox are not a team built to rely on their pitching. In the American League, their starters are (for the most part) good enough to keep them in the game, and let this vaunted offense do its vauntable thing and score bushels of runs. Now would be a good time to start. There were no last-second heroics for the Sox last night, no timely......

The curse-carryin' shredded-up David Ortiz jersey that had the Yanks quaking in their cleats has officially sold on eBay--for $175,100. Over a million people checked out the auction while it was going on, but not all of us could afford the awesomely exorbitant pricing. The auction benefits the Jimmy Fund, which unveiled the Ortiz jersey last Thursday at the Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Red Sox Gallery. The jersey will be on display at The Sports Museum......

Maybe, in retrospect, it's not the best idea for a guy to mouth off before a game everyone know he's going to lose. In four years, remember, Freddie Mitchell went from Super Bowl trashtalker to disgraced Indiana substitute teacher. Who knows what the future holds for Atlanta Hawk point guard Mike Bibby, but you've got to wonder why he's still talking while he utterly and completely fails to back it up on the court. Not......

If we had to pick one favorite moment from the Celtics' rout of Atlanta last night... Contenders would be Pierce's opening flurry of 3-pointers, or Ray Allen confidently taking over in the third quarter, or Rondo's patented "huck the ball off the other guy while falling out of bounds" move. Or any of numerous blocks, dunks, defensive shutdowns that made the 104-81 final not really even as close as that. But the greatest moment of......

We're big microcosm fans here at the Bostonist Sports Department. So we're even more excited by the Bruins than we'd ordinarily be. The story arc for their whole season has been overachievement, resilience, and good old-fashioned grit. They weren't supposed to be in the playoffs. They weren't supposed to hang with the mighty Canadiens. And they sure aren't supposed to be heading back to Montreal for Game Seven. But they are. In a game that......

He says he feels better. He says he's actually felt pretty good for a couple of weeks now. But David Ortiz must feel great today, after his season-long slump ended with a Monster shot grand slam off the hapless Rangers to spark a 11-3 whupping. It was such a rebirth for Papi that his teammates gave him the "silent treatment" in the dugout usually reserved for rookies hitting their first homer. Other offensive highlights: a......

They worked hard enough in Game Two to go to OT. Last night, they took it a step further, as the Bruins beat Montreal for the first time since about 1982 in a thrilling 2-1 OT win at the Garden. It started with a Milan Lucic goal in the first period, giving the B's their first lead against the Canadiens since about 1995. Tom Kostopolous evened the score late in the second. So much for......

The Bruins had high hopes coming into their first playoff series in years. Within two minutes, though, Montreal had slapped them with a cold dose of bitter reality. The Habs were faster, stronger, more accurate, and less nervous. The result: a 4-1 loss. The Flying Kostitsyn Brothers got Montreal's show on the road early, as Sergei scored at 0:34 and Andrei followed at 2:02. The Bruins settled down a bit towards the end of the......

Nobody around here enjoyed last night very much. The Sox' listless loss to Detroit has us wondering where we chucked the Panic Button. The offense is anemic (did you catch Lugo coming six inches away from hitting into a triple play?). David Ortiz is off to a particularly wretched start, at .091. Mike Lowell jammed his thumb and we don't know how hurt he is. Jon Lester keeps digging holes for himself that he doesn't......

David Ortiz is back! That guy who went to Japan, kind of looked like Papi, swung with a handicap, and made lots of outs was replaced by the confident slugger we all know and love. The real Papi singled in the fifth for his first hit of the year, then put the Sox on the board with a 2-run homer in the seventh. The blast made a winner of Jon Lester, who pitched a great......

Hold your horses. Put your plans to start drinking at 6 AM on hold. The Sox plane to Japan is sitting empty on the runway. The team voted unanimously to boycott the trip to Tokyo, over some confusion over whether bonuses to the team's coaches and other off-field personnel were actually promised or not. Coaches were supposed to get an extra $40K(!), but when Terry Francona went to cross the T's and dot the I's,......

This Bostonist finally got around to seeing There Will Be Blood last night, so we're prepared to concede that the West can be a harsh and pitiless place. Until this week, the West had been very good to the Celtics. But now they're drinkin' our milkshake! The reeling C's have matched their longest losing streak of the year (two) after Baron Davis broke our hearts with a game-winning shot for the last of his 29......

A spring-loaded dress, a sun-lit fan, and a purse with a built-in alarm system were just a few of the futuristic fashions on display at the Seamless: Computational Couture fashion show at the Museum of Science on Wednesday. Over 1000 design and technology lovers packed three floors of the MoS's Blue Wing to admire clothes and accessories ranging from sublime (an air-filled dress that changes shape based on barometric pressure) to sci-fi (a burial suit......

You know the old saying: you can't win 'em all. There are some gentlemen in Foxboro who may disagree, but the theory holds up for the most part. Which the Celtics and their eager fans learned last night at the Garden, as the battle-tested Pistons came in and outlasted the C's for the first home loss of the season. It was a great game, though. The first quarter belonged to Rajon Rondo, including an early......

We already know they must hate us in Minnesota. Once, they had David Ortiz, Randy Moss and Kevin Garnett. Now they don't. But they must really hate us in Denver these days; less than two weeks after their Colorado Rockies were vaporized in the World Series, the Nuggets came to Boston and fared just as badly. The Celtics (who said they'd need time to adjust to one another?) annihilated Denver almost from the opening last......

For a day that featured not a single Boston professional sports team in game mode, Tuesday was jam-packed with sports news. And what made things even more ridiculous was the fact that, for a good portion of the day, one faced difficulty figuring out what news was legit and what was a sports scribe's attempt at an exclusive gone wrong (Tom Brady exclusive, anyone? Don't worry, we'll get it to it). We're going to sort......

Now that the Red Sox have won the World Series, how are they doing with the publicity grind? We'll evaluate each one's turn on late-nite television: Manny Ramirez on Leno: Two versions of Manny Ramirez exist--the sulky one and the gleeful one who invites everyone over to his house for drinks. Gleeful Manny showed up on Leno. He chatted with Leno about cars and awkwardly hit fists with Steve Carrell. At first, it seemed like......

The boys are back in town, the taco meat has been brought up from the cellar, and all of New England's non-essential personnel are taking the afternoon off for a parade. (Dude...Tuesday afternoon? Really?!) The good news, for some people, is that Jonathan Papelbon's dance of spontaneous excitement and youthful exuberance has now been added to the Official Canon of Sox-Nation-Approved Quirks. The Duck Boats will slow down at predesignated locations so that Papelbon can......

The Red Sox returned from a little trip of consequence out West on Monday and found several thousand fans waiting to welcome them back and get a taste of the victory parade planned for Tuesday. A caravan of buses rolled up to the park shortly after 5 p.m. Monday afternoon and those in attendance didn't have to wait long to see the hardware they'd been lusting after all post-season long: Tom Werner, John Henry, and......

It looks like just might be a higher power looking down on the MLB postseason. He/She/It is a Red Sox fan and, judging from the sight of Derek Jeter slapping like mad at the bugs descending upon him at the Jake on Friday night, any higher powers out there have a wicked sense of humor. On a Friday night that gave us fire (well, on the T here in Boston), locusts cleverly passed off as......

We're going to predict it now: regardless of how the coming weeks treat our local baseball team, the 2007 Red Sox season - sorry, 2007 Pennant-Winning Red Sox season - is going to go down as one for the history books. Years from now, there are going to be many people out there who exclaim that they never doubted that the Sox would win the division. They're going to talk about how they knew that......

The Red Sox were at home, facing down the Oakland A's on Tuesday night, but everyone had one eye on events unfolding in Florida. And wouldn't you know? Things worked out perfectly. The drama-filled Oakland game (only in September would one be able to string those words together) was decisively won by Boston and featured numerous reasons for the Fenway crowd to stand up and cheer. Tampa Bay managed to scratch together a 10-inning, 7-6,......

Let's ignore, if you will, the fact that the Sox seemed Friday night as if they wanted to reach a new club record for number of times they left the bases loaded stranded. Let's forget about the fact that Manny Ramirez is unlikely to return to the lineup during this series in Tampa Bay, which means he is officially (in our books, anyway) taking his annual September vacation. We can even push aside the feeling......

Lots to cover today, but let's begin with a show of hands: who turned off the Red Sox game once Devil Ray killer Tim Wakefield slunk off the mound in the fourth inning on Tuesday night? It's OK, there's nothing to be ashamed of - after praying for Boston's rains to clear up so Wake could face the DRays, it only makes sense that a poor start from the ol' knuckleballer would drive the NESN......

Long live the Slutter! There was much to celebrate in Red Sox circles last night, but at the top of the list, we have Jonathan Papelbon's brand (spanking) new pitch. The Slutter - a name that will leave mothers gasping as they cover the ears beneath their children's tot-sized hats and the cast of characters at the Cask'n Flagon cracking up. The Red Sox vernacular has expanded by leaps and bounds this season. We learned......

If the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were smart (and we're not for a moment suggesting that's the case), they'd look seriously into Tim Wakefield's "rolling" contract extension with the Red Sox, and try to figure out how much money it would take to lure Wake down to St. Petersburg full-time. Because it's possible that Tim's 19-2 lifetime record against the Devil Rays, and 9-0 lifetime record at Tropicana Field, are solely a result of the......

There are days when the Red Sox remind us of the Justice League of America - that inspired creation of D.C. Comics where a number of their best superheroes ally to use their unique talents, banding together to fight evil. Sunday was one of those days. Not that the Angels are evil, per se, but they clearly represented a menace to all that is good and just, or at least to the Red Sox' division-title......

It was a busy Friday in Boston sports - two Red Sox games, one Patriots exhibition game, baby news from someone other than Tom Brady...whew! We're just going to dive right in and give you the quick and dirty version of the Redux. Ready? Here goes: -- We've heard that Sox fans who attended the first game of the Friday Fenway doubleheader made sure to carefully tuck their ticket stubs away. We imagine that the......

Well, if your game against Tampa Bay gets upgraded to "must-win" status, you had better make sure Tim Wakefield is on the mound. Wake owns the Devil Rays. And Wake, last night, handcuffed, bound, gagged and threw the Rays into the river, giving up only two hits in an eight-inning masterpiece. The Red Sox' home run boycott continued, but they did give Tim more than enough run support. David Ortiz doubled in the first run,......

We hate to throw around the term "must-win" game. Game 4-7 of the 2004 ALCS; now those were must-win games. An August game against a non-divisional foe, when you're winning your own division, shouldn't qualify for the term. But last night sure felt like it. The Sox had dropped two straight to the Angels and the Yankees have been getting closer and closer in the rearview mirror. Furthermore, the Sox were taking the field sans......