Don't listen to the so-called experts. Kids LOVE pitchers' duels. Go up to any schoolboy and mention some of the great mound rivalries of the past - Koufax/Marichal, Gibson/Seaver, Palmer/Hunter - and, well, you'll probably get a blank look. But maybe you'll find a kid who knows what you're talking about, and chances are that kid appreciated the gem last night at Fenway. For the Sox, Jon Lester was throwing strikes (yay) and inducing groundouts,......

Someday, when Johan Santana and Jacoby Ellsbury are on the same Hall of Fame ballot, we're going to think back to the time when one was almost traded for the other. And then we're going to remember nights like last night, and no matter how many wins, K's and Cy Youngs Santana racks up over his career, we're going to thank Theo Epstein for keeping Ellsbury in Boston. Jacoby ruled the day last night in......

Did you enjoy yesterday's narrowly-averted international incident? All is well, and the Sox will be landing in Japan this morning. The deal as we understand it is that instead of the $40K(!) the coaches were supposed to get as a business-trip bonus, they're now getting a good chunk of that from MLB, and the Red Sox will make up the difference. The best thing to come out of this is that the team's been united......

Is there anything Dustin Pedroia can’t do? You can add Condiment Connoisseur to his resume. The Rookie of the Year has recently released his first salsa. Be on the look out for Pedroia’s Black Bean and Corn salsa . Produced by PBL Sports , the company that’s seems to have the market cornered when it comes to athletes and food. How some Big Ben XL Beef Jerky (helmet not included) or maybe for those......

--Governor Deval Patrick is so lucky. He's in Miami right now. Meanwhile, the AP is wondering why he's leaving the state so much. [AP/Boston Herald] --Mayor Menino wants a greenway over Storrow Drive. Can't we just work on fixing what's broken? [Boston Globe] --An MBTA driver was trying to cut around traffic in Salem. However, the traffic was stopped because people were waiting for a couple with a baby carriage to cross. No one......

You'll have to forgive the Celtics if they felt like they arrived in Portland having lurched their way up the Oregon Trail. Three losses in a row doesn't quite compare to running out of buffalo meat and spilling a wagon into the Big Blue River, but combine that with the debacle in Phoenix, and you can understand why some of the team felt like they died of cholera. Things reached the lowest of the low......

Let's be honest. We've long known that Boston is at least on the short list for Sports City of the United States. The passion felt by Boston sports fans has long been either heralded or chastised, depending on your point of view. But if you'd told us at the dawn of 2007 that we were entering one of the best years Boston sports teams and fans would ever experience, we would have laughed. Long. Hard.......

You'd think that a day on which we learned that the Pope would rather celebrate mass at Yankee Stadium than anywhere near Boston would be a grim one. Let's face it, that's kind of like George Steinbrenner holding a press conference to announce that Yankees fans are guaranteed eternal salvation, but Red Sox fans will be hitting the highway to hell when their times come. But hey - let the Pope do what he will.......

--A fire on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan injured 13 people, but a firefighter managed to save a baby. --Apparently the Pope ain't a Sox Fan. We dig visiting the 9/11 site, but mass at Yankee Stadium? C'mon... --At least Dustin showed the Yanks who's boss. Or if not boss, then Rookie of the Year. --One man lends a new meaning to meat salesman. --Women can't win, even in Starbucks lines. Give us a......

So we were driving home from a party Saturday night, and heard on the radio that BC lost. Almost reflexively, we went, "Figures; as soon as we start paying attention to BC, they start losi....". Then we stopped and thought for a minute. Being reflexively negative and miserable just doesn't cut it when four of the five pro teams in town are either undefeated, in the championship game, or current World Champs. We know we're......

Well, the Red Sox proved that they can win even when Colorado finds its offense. So it's 3-0, and teams coming back from 3-0 is a once-in-a-lifetime deal. (We're engaging in a little post-2004 thinking, but don't think we're not engaging in all the superstitions, wearing the same cap, drinking the same coffee, wearing the same underwear, etc., in the meantime). The Sox came out blazing, slapping Rockies starter Josh Fogg around for six in......

"That's not the way we drew it up," said Colorado manager Clint Hurdle. "Obviously we have to change our game plan," added Todd Helton. "You can't make any mistakes," chimed in shellshocked starting pitcher Jeff Francis. If you're Colorado, what else can you say? The team that charged through September and most of October, and held Arizona to eight total runs in their mockery of an NLCS, looked like they hadn't played baseball in eight......

Game Seven was a perfect little microcosm for the 2007 Red Sox, wasn't it? It left you laughing, and crying, and reaching for the Mylanta, and reaching for the whiskey, and jubilant, and terrified, and when it was all over, you looked back and wondered how you could have possibly ever doubted the final results. The story coming into this was whether Daisuke Matsuzaka would be able to reach deep inside himself and find whatever......

We sure hope Josh Beckett found time during yesterday's off-day to watch High Noon. If you haven't seen it, the plot is that Sheriff Gary Cooper has one day left until retirement, and a pack of mean outlaws are coming to town to wreak havoc. He tries to round up a posse to meet them, but everyone in town has a dentist appointment, or their hair is drying, or they don't roll on Shabbos, or......

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......

Dare we say things are starting to click at the right time? The Red Sox finished off Oakland with an 11-6 win. Now only a monumental collapse (look upward; no lightning) will keep the Red Sox from celebrating an AL East clinchin' party in the next day or two. The Sox smacked Oakland largely due to the bat of Mike Lowell, who collected five of his 116 RBIs (a Red Sox 3B record) on a......

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......

Ladies and gentlemen, may we present to you this week's nominee for Douchebag on the Diamond: Daniel Cabrera. Cabrera, 26, is a Gemini who throws and bats righty. He enjoys roaming about Camden Yards and, oh wait, headhunting. Or so it seems, at least, considering the fact that he fired a shot at Dustin Pedroia's head on Friday night during a Red Sox-Orioles matchup down in Fenway South Camden. The fact that the Sox, who......

When Bostonist were kids, pitching the tennis ball against the chimney for five hours straight, we often dreamed of the day we'd get called up to the Red Sox, in the heat of a pennant race, tabbed for a sudden start, and then go out and throw a no-hitter in our big-league debut. Clay Buchholz is a slacker. It took him until his SECOND Major League start to have a piece of memorabilia suitable for......

Technical difficulties plagued yesterday's Redux. We'll cover both weekend games here. Sorry. Not since Mrs. O'Leary's cow had its legendary bout with Restless Legs Syndrome has Chicago been so utterly and completely flattened. But this time it wasn't fire, but the relentless bats of the Red Sox, woken from their August slumber, who pounded the Pale Hose into a pinstriped pulp. (We miss a day, we lay it on a little thick the next day.......

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......

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......

Fear of the number 13. As in, 13 innings. As in, losing in the 13th inning on an Ivan Rodriguez single off of Jonathan Papelbon. But don't blame Papelbon, on a night when the Red Sox had two runs after three batters, then took the rest of the night off. A night when the team left a platoon on base. A night when - well, it just wasn't our night. It started off well enough;......

There's an old saying in baseball...well, there are a lot, like "Take two and hit to right", or "Don't bunt to break up a no-hitter", but there's an old theory that when you get lots of men on base, it's in your best interest to drive them in. A little crazy, to be sure, but it's a piece of wisdom that the Red Sox have been ignoring for some time. Not last night. The Sox......

After three innings last night, the mood at Fenway was as good as it gets. Josh Beckett was on the mound, and the Sox had staked him to a 4-0 lead. The team was hitting well, including superprospect Jacoby Ellsbury, who got his first major-league hit by zipping down the first-base line to beat the throw on a routine ground ball. The Sox even had a helper monkey named Ayla throw out the first pitch.......

Friday night's adrenaline-filled Texas/Boston matchup confirmed for us two things that we've suspected: Jonathan Papelbon is human and man, we really don't want to ever tick him off. While we can't post the photo directly, we can encourage you to take a look at an image of rage from Fenway Park last night. During the top of the ninth, as the Sox were clinging to a 2-1 lead, Papelbon had given up what first base......

Jerry Remy summed it up perfectly last night: "Both are terrible." The Rem wasn't talking about the play on display Saturday night at Petco Park in San Diego (although at times, he wouldn't have been far off), but was discussing the throwback uniforms worn by the Sox and Padres last night. Memo to both teams: burn those uniforms now. It looked as if "The Wizard of Oz" had thrown up all over Petco Park. Boston......

We'll get into the Red Sox victory over Atlanta in just a moment, but Curt Schilling just wrapped up his weekly phone call with WEEI, and Bostonist was struck by the decidedly different tone of voice we heard over the airwaves. Schilling's not sure about what's going on with his arm, and we're not sure about what's going on with our No. 1 starter - which means we're in the midst of an odd Wednesday......

If you said the Red Sox lineup would eventually break out of its funk, you weren't alone. If you said it would be J.D. Drew and Dustin Pedroia who did their "Bash Brothers" imitation and got the runs home, please forward us tonight's lottery numbers. Terry Francona's gambit of putting Drew and Pedroia 1-2 in the lineup paid off bigtime last night, as the two combined to go 8-for-9 with 8 RBIs in the 10-2......

One word sums up the spirit felt within Fenway Park on Tuesday night: confidence. The Red Sox returned home from its West Coast roadtrip exhausted (players, management and sleep-deprived fans alike) and with a 3-4 record. Offense had been shaky. The team continued to hit too many double play balls for comfort. And Tim Wakefield, who had struggled through a tough month-long stretch of starts, was slated to take the mound. And yet it seemed......