There will be no Ultimate Battle of Good Vs. Evil this year. Evil couldn't get past the first round. Ten men left on base, a useless home run from Alex Rodriguez (bet it will be bold-formatted on the resume), and a miserable start from Chien-Ming Wang had the Yankees calling for tee times by the fifth inning. For Yankee-haters, the fun starts now. Joe Torre has already been given the Dread Pirate Roberts treatment by......

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......

In one sense, we all dodged a bullet last night. If Roger Clemens had thrown a no-hitter, you wouldn't be reading these words right now: rather, a six-paragraph string of bad words. It was that close. But it's not like there's much of a silver lining after the Sox dropped their second straight in the Bronx. Roger took a no-hitter into the sixth (thank you, Papi, thank you, thank you), which is bad. Manny Ramirez......

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......

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,......

The Red Sox have been living large off of the Foes' inferior bullpens all season. Sadly, what goes around came around last night. The unstoppable Okajima and unbeatable Papelbon were respectively stopped and beaten by the Yankees, who took 2 out of 3 from the Sox for the second straight series. This one was a typical Sox-Yankees seesaw affair. Josh Beckett pitched well, but spotted the Yanks a 4-0 lead. But the Sox got it......

-- The discussion was running rampant on the WRKO Sox broadcast late Friday night: is Mariano Rivera hurt? Was he simply embarrassed by the performance he gave while the Red Sox trounced his team en route to an 11-4 win? Is there something more? While the on-air talent was busy ruminating, another question entirely was running through Bostonist's mind: after finally coming up for air after this week's Sockgate, isn't it refreshing to have all......

There are two types of people in the world: those who are willing to slog through rain, wind, possible snow (hey, you never know) and agony to complete a marathon, and...the other kind. Bostonist freely admits to being the other kind. But to everyone who wills their way through this, we tip our hats, raise our glasses, and count our blessings that we'll be home watching you on TV. If you have time to fiddle......

It's getting exciting down in Florida. Dice-K seems to be living up to the hype, and David Ortiz has returned in top form. In fact, the two almost collided the other day, enabling the AP to suggest a potential "confrontation" between the two if Dice-K pitches to Big Papi. We can't wait. Speaking of physical fallouts, something's going around Fort Meyers. Terry Francona has the flu, and Mike Timlin hurt his back while pitching. But......

Coming from someone who liberally threw around the "traitor" and "judas" labels, among others, Bostonist should probably be the last one to talk about how much of a raw deal Mr. Damon got from the crowd last night. But when you hear that one of the most beloved players on your team decided to sign with the enemy, of course there will be a knee-jerk reaction. Of course you'll call home names—and probably names worse......