The Red Sox continued their slide last night, losing to the Tampa Bay ‘Please Don’t Call Us The Devil Rays’ Rays 5- 4 in the 11th . But the most painful part of last night’s game wasn’t the 11th inning single that Mike Timlin gave up, but was the injury backup first basemen, Sean Casey. Casey tweaked his right hip flexor coming running home after Jacoby Ellsbury hit a single in the second inning......

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,......

We're going to the playoffs! Sure, it's been an awful September, for the most part. And sure, the Red Sox still very much have to somehow finish off New York, and ideally fend off the Angels and Indians to secure home-field advantage throughout the postseason. But the first step is officially taken, as the Sox rallied to beat the Devil Rays 8-6 and ensure they would, at the very least, beat out Detroit for the......

Thomas Paine said, "These are the times that try men's souls". Hamlet said, "To take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them." Dr. Peter Venkman said it a bit pithier, as above. All true. The Red Sox are in St. Petersburg tonight to play the Devil Rays, and if they don't treat the Rays like the second coming of the Big Red Machine, they're going to find themselves in serious hot......

We thought we might be able to squeak by with optimism (whether produced naturally or provided by alcohol), we thought that the worst was behind us. But here we are, rounding that final bend before we plunge into the postseason and...well...the Sox lost to the Blue Jays on Tuesday night, 4-3, while the Yankees pulverized the Orioles, 12-0. Here we go, gang: only two and a half games separate Boston and New York. Sox fans......

Yeah, baby! We all know that the Red Sox should be thumping the Devil Rays, but it's hard to argue with two consecutive hard-fought, come-from-behind wins from a lineup that's been painful to watch for stretches this season. Last night, the Sox surrendered four early runs to Tampa Bay, with starter Jon Lester throwing 65,431 pitches and only making into the fourth inning. Rays starter Edwin Jackson, looking like a Cy Young candidate (the Sox......

Your optimists can say that the Red Sox still have a decent lead in the AL East. That October is a foregone conclusion at Fenway. That Schilling is back and hitting his stride just at the right time. That's why optimists don't last long around here. Games like last night, when the Sox couldn't get ONE SINGLE measly solitary guy around to score against the Devil Rays, break their spirit. In the midst of first,......

The national script for this game was supposed to be that the Patriots, widely considered Superbowl favorites, would have a tough test against a hungry Jets team that made life tough for the Pats last year. Well...not exactly. The Patriots played like they were all outta bubblegum yesterday, kicking the Jets' butts up and down the field. Want offensive highlights? Well, Brady and Randy Moss shushed the haters by connecting nine times for 183 yards......

Never go on stage after the banjo act, they say, and try not to pitch the day after your teammate throws a no-hitter. There's really nowhere to go but down. Aubrey Huff singled in the second for the Orioles. That right there is a letdown after Buchholz' masterpiece on Saturday. But the Red Sox - well, actually, the PawSox mostly, since the average age of the guys in the lineup yesterday was 15.4 - recovered......

Frankly, we'd like to know what Daisuke Matsuzaka did to alienate his teammates. Does he play "Gyroball" constantly in the clubhouse? Mix wasabi in with the Ben Gay as a lockerroom prank? There must be some reason why his lineup consistently fails to give him any run support, making him 1-3 against the Devil Rays to his 12-7 record against the rest of the league. Don Orsillo put it best late in the game last......

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......

Clay Buchholz is coming! The Red Sox have groomed and nurtured their up-and-coming phenom, and will turn him loose on an unsuspecting American Leage this afternoon. Well, not entirely unsuspecting, since it's been pretty widely reported. He has explosive stuff (if no gyroball), good command, and a great attitude, says everyone who's worked with him in the farm system. And he gets his first crack in the bigs today against the [Your Municipality Here] Angels.......

Boy, this one had "thrilling comeback" written all over it, didn't it? After the Red Sox pulled Tuesday night's game out of the grave, they spotted Tampa Bay a 6-0 lead yesterday afternoon. (Oh, inconsistent, Daisuke...what's to be done with you?) The Sox then started chipping away as they've done so many times. Jason Varitek's 2-run homer in the seventh chased starter Andy Sonnanstine to the clubhouse, then Crisp walked and Lugo followed with an......

With rare exception, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays is a different team when Scott Kazmir is on the mound. But on Tuesday night, the Red Sox was also a different sort of team - one that came back for only the second time in 43 games from a deficit heading into the eighth inning. Yeah, that's right. The Sox were down late in the game and they actually came back to win, 2-1. The game......

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 interrupt your regularly-scheduled fretting and Chicken Littling to announce that, despite being only -5 games back, the Red Sox intend to remain competitive in the AL East race. See, whatever the Yankees do, whether it's fishgutting the Devil Rays, overthrowing the Royals, or....beating the Indians (there's no metaphor we can use there that doesn't make us feel so very wrong), they can't catch the Sox if the Sox keep winning. It's just that simple.......

As fans, we can afford to be capricious. That's why the Kevin Garnett-to-the-Celtics rumors, which seemed way too expensive back in June when we thought we were building for the future, have us a little giddier now. ESPN is reporting that the trade talks are starting to swirl around again; the deal would still involve Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff (who is the Celtics MVP based on how much everyone lusts after his expiring contract), and......

Jonathan Papelbon and the Red Sox decided to add a little drama to their regularly-scheduled win over the Devil Rays. The Sox gave Jon Lester, in his second start returning from his cancer surgery, a 5-2 lead going into the seventh-inning stretch. The lead was built on a well-balanced sprinkling of hits and timely run-scoring offense, exactly the kind of thing we were constantly yearning for a few weeks ago. Was there really a time......

Oh, hindsight. What tricks you play on fans, coaches and baseball bullpens. It made sense, in some respects, for Tampa Bay pseudo-starter Jason Hammel to be pulled from Friday night's game during the sixth inning. Considering that Hammel, a reliever bumped up to starting rotation placement, had walked consecutive batters when the DRays were holding onto a precious 1-0 lead, the decision to turn to the bullpen was one that many baseball enthusiasts would support......

Two previous games, two total runs. Thursday night, runs were scoring every time you turned around. 14-9 Red Sox. Such is baseball. Recapping all the runs chronologically would take forever, so let's look at a few highlights. Like Manny Ramirez: Two home runs, including a bomb in the second that landed near Akron. Mike Lowell: three-for-five. And (sit down) Wily Mo Pena (!), who went 4-for-5 (!) with a 3-run home run that blew the......

Remember May? When this kind of thing happened all the time? The Red Sox and White Sox played a close, competitive game for six innings. Then the Chicago bullpen melted down in a big way, and the good Sox found themselves on the right end of a 11-2 win. The Red Sox had a 2-1 lead going into the sixth, when a J.D. Drew RBI double and a Coco Crisp RBI single gave Kason Gabbard......

It was a scenario we've experienced so many times before that Sox fans couldn't help but smile in anticipation. Bottom of the ninth at Fenway Park. The tying and go-ahead run already on base. One out. David Ortiz striding to the plate to tip the balance on a 6-5 deficit. We're supposed to win those games, right? Despite the fact that the Red Sox had given up its lead to the Toronto Blue Jays, even......

When you're a kid, one of the fringe benefits to playing Little League or soccer is that you often got to stop at McDonald's on the way home. Win or lose. We're not sure if Major League teams have a similar policy, but if the Red Sox team bus stopped at a Mickey's outside of Detroit, no one on the team would be allowed to supersize today, after a miserable weekend getting swept by the......

Today's Redux is going to be short and sweet - let's face it, there isn't a whole lot of good news to report from the first in the Red Sox three-game visit to Detroit. Friday night was just plain ugly, a 9-2 loss to the Tigers that served as the proverbial "other shoe" from Thursday's Devil Rays slaughter. After tearing up Fenway the night before, it seemed the Sox had nothing left to start off......

It's always a good sign when the only two elements of suspense to a ballgame are (1) will we get to the fifth inning before the rain comes, and (2) will the starting pitcher's arm get stiff from sitting in the dugout for a long time while his offense scores bunches of runs. Fortunately for the Sox last night, the answers were yes and no, respectively, as the Sox pummeled the Devil Rays to a......

It may not have been as impressive as the fireworks display later in the evening, but the continued presence of actual offense - beautiful, productive, run-scoring offense - at Fenway Park warmed the hearts of Sox fans and good Americans on the Fourth of July. The immediate beneficiary was Tim Wakefield, who improved to 9-8 after pitching six very fine innings and one-third of a bad one. He fell apart in the seventh, but the......

You'd think that the story of last night's Red Sox/Devil Rays series kickoff would be the glorious-yet-atypical change of character demonstrated by DR pitcher Scott Kazmir. Sure, we'll get to that, but c'mon - something huge happened. Julio Lugo safely hit the ball! And then he did it AGAIN! It had been a long, rough road for our offensively challenged shortstop - a road with 33 seemingly untravelable off-ramps along the way. Different spots in......

The complete game is a dying art in the States. In the age of relief specialists, managers tied to pitch counts, and Papelbon, there aren't a lot of occasions when a manager wants to leave his starter in any longer than necessary. And last night, in fact, Papelbon was warming up when the Sox blew the game open in the 8th, taking a 7-1 lead and giving Terry Francona an excuse to leave Daisuke in......

If only Tim Wakefield could pitch in Toronto all the time. Wake shut down the Jays a month ago, and he did it again Thursday night, going seven innings and cruising to a 8-0 pounding of the Blue Jays, who have plummeted straight past "hapless". 26-5 was the final score of the three-game series. Wake had a little early trouble. The Jays loaded the bases with one out, but Wake struck out Frank Thomas, then......