The wheels are coming off the bus. After Monday night's debacle in DC and Tuesday's shutout at the hands of Florida, the Bruins desperately needed a strong showing last night, with Toronto in town and their six-seed hanging by a thread. They gave a strong performance, all right, but only if you gauge by smell. The Bruins opened a 1-0 lead, then watched helplessly as the Leafs pummeled them into a fine dust, scoring eight......

Poor Chicago. True, the Bulls could have made things interesting at the TD Banknorth Garden on Friday night if they'd actually shown up ready to play. But we imagine that they knew, as they sat in the locker room before warmups, that the Celtics weren't going to let anyone speculate about Boston's ability to bounce back from a loss. The guys in green were going to come out hard against anyone they faced - and......

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......

Hope you sports fans were able to relax yesterday. The disappointing non-slaughter of the Jets is in the rear view mirror, the Dolphins game isn't quite as exciting since the stupid Ravens ended Miami's bid for a winless season, everything is sewn up in the AFC, and the Monday Night game wasn't that exciting. Plus, the Celtics and Bruins were off. But we've got some big games coming up in the next 48 hours, so......

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......

For all the hype and adoration heaped on Daisuke Matsuzaka, the fact is he's still technically a rookie, if a seasoned one. And rookies do things like get themselves into trouble. His last few starts, Dice has been prone to having one bad inning here and there, which combined with a lack of run support, has caused some trouble. Last night, fortunately, the offense picked him up and pulled him out of the fire. The......

Part of us thinks that a team that's scuffling as bad as the Red Sox are right now deserves to have five guys named to the All-Star team. But we do recognize that the honor is bestowed upon players based on the entire spring's production, not just the last couple weeks of lousy baseball, so let's give credit where credit is due. Manny, Papi, Lowell, Beckett, and Papelbon are all going to San Francisco for......

Any time you can sweep a doubleheader against the defending AL Champs and the second-best team in the league, you have to view that as a pretty good sign. So plenty of smiles all around at Fenway yesterday. The first game was all about the pitching; Julian Tavarez went seven innings, giving up one run on four hits, and then Okajima and Papelbon sealed the deal, vaporizing the Tigers for an inning apiece as the......

Let's give a hand to WEEI caller Pauley, who aptly summed up Tuesday's Sox home game against the Detroit Tigers during the Planet Mikey Show with, "It was a drinking night tonight." It wasn't a pretty showing at Fenway on Tuesday, despite the presence of the brilliant-this-season Tim Wakefield on the mound. The Sox endured a 7-2 pounding that was led by Tiger pitcher and 2006 AL Rookie of the Year Justin Verlander (7 2/3......

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. So begins Ernest Thayer's immortal "Casey at the Bat". Mudville flops in that poem, as we all know, but the situation was even more grim for the Red Sox going into the ninth on Sunday. Orioles youngster Jeremy Guthrie was firmly in control of the ballgame, and the score at Fenway stood......

This Japanese Word of the Day will, we hope, be brought to you by Daisuke Matsuzaka, who will try to use his houri to send the Yankees packing tonight. The Red Sox took game two of the latest Ultimate Regular Season Series yesterday; Josh Beckett recovered from a couple shaky innings to hold New York in check. David Ortiz provided the big hit, as he is wont to do, with a two-run homer around......

We're eagerly waiting to see how our local NCAA matchups shake out. Boston College takes on Texas Tech and Bobby Knight tomorrow, and Holy Cross faces off against Southern Illinois on Friday. In the other big college basketball tournament, the NIT, the UMass Minutemen defeated Alabama in overtime 89 to 87. They'll advance into the next round to play West Virginia. So let's not forget the NIT in the face of March Madness. Speaking of,......

We refuse - flat out refuse - to get emotionally caught up in a spring training game. Even if it's Sox-Yankees. Especially if A-Rod, Jeter, and Johnny Demon didn't make the trip down to Fort Myers. But if you saw a nuclear-bomb-like flash to the south yesterday evening, it may have been the million flashbulbs trained on the first U.S. meet-and-greet between the two Japanese superstars: Sox' Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Yankees' Hideki Matsui. "He......

The brackets are here. Get it, and hide it from your boss! On second thought, your boss probably has one, too. The No. 1 seeds are Florida, North Carolina, Kansas, and Ohio State. Boston College is a seventh seed and will play against 10th seeded Texas Tech. At least they know what they'll be getting into with coach/professional nutter Bobby Knight. The Patriots buying frenzy continues, and they may have acquired a player who will......