Someone switched pages in the script. The Red Sox were supposed to leave Yankee Stadium for the last time yesterday flying high, having crushed New York's spirit and set their sights firmly on catching and dispatching Tampa Bay. And it was headed that way, with Jon Lester cruising on a 2-0 lead going into the seventh. But Lester gave up a double, Francona decided to trust in his bullpen, and before you could say "Seriously,......

It wasn’t too long ago when the Yankees came to town for a five game series that was a make or break situation for the Sox. But in historic Yankee fashion, they threw us over the proverbial barrel and violated us. But now the tables are turned and it feels good to be on top. Well, in second place and first in line for the Wild Card. But still, it could be worse. We could......

It's pretty sweet, isn't it? The Red Sox are going into Yankee Stadium for the last time (OK, OK, the last time during the regular season), Tim Wakefield made a more-or-less triumphant return to the rotation, the bullpen pitched as well as it has all year, and Alex Rodriguez was booed off the field by the Bronx more-or-less faithful. And the mighty Rays are stumbling, so the Sox are right back in this thing. It's......

It’s the last Red Sox/Yankees series to be played at Yankee Stadium. Honestly, this act is getting as tired as it did when we were getting close to the millennium. But we understand why, there have been a few historic moments between the two teams there and when you’re five games out of the Wild Card spot, you need something to hold on to. After a nail bitter in Toronto, the Red Sox had yesterday......

Is this going to be the game that we look back on and say, yes, this was the day the 2008 Red Sox got it together? It's not out of the question. The Sox have been - let's go with scuffling - for a couple of weeks. They've watched Toronto blow them out of Fenway and blow Jon Lester out of SkyDome or whatever it's called now. And they stepped up, taking the Jays to......

The bad news is, the Red Sox still face Toronto eight more times this year. The good news is, it can't get much worse than it did yesterday, when the Blue Jays enthusiastically pounded Jon Lester and scraped the Sox off their cleats, 11-0. Lester, who's been the island of competence in a Sox staff filled with injuries, control loss and a million question marks, didn't even make it three innings. Vernon Wells kicked off......

The Red Sox got some revenge on the Toronto Blue Jays and Paul Byrd got his first win in a Red Sox uniform last night, when they beat the Jays 8-4. Paul Byrd pitched for six innings, got tagged for 4 runs and struck out 4. Alex Rios and Lyle Overbay both got homeruns off of Byrd in the first and fourth innings. Dustin Pedroia started off the night with a homerun and the Red......

The Sox took the day off yesterday, heading for Canada and hoping to pay the Blue Jays back for the whupping that Toronto put on them at Fenway last week. Paul Byrd, a victim of the Jays during that series, gets the start tonight against Shaun Marcum. The Blue Jays did the world a favor last night by clobbering the Yankees 14-3, and Hank Steinbrenner isn't disappointing anyone who's been patiently waiting for the first......

Oh, Clay Buchholz. You teased us with that no-hitter last year. But, at heart, you're still just a young, inconsisent kid, except for the last few months, when you've been consistently bad. And last night, when your team gave you a 4-0 lead, well...that may have been the last straw. Yes, the Sox turned the 4-0 lead over to Clay and watched it quickly turn into an 11-6 loss, which will send Buchholz (who last......

While Carl Yastrzemski was "resting comfortably" at MGH after his triple bypass surgery, the current Red Sox were 400 miles south, honoring Yaz with some clutch hitting and some fire as they beat Baltimore again, 7-2. The hitting came from Jason Varitek (2 HR in 2 nights?!?) and Kevin Youkilis (3-for-5 with a homer), among others. The fire came from Dustin Pedroia, who launched a few indiscretions at umpires, and Coco Crisp, who became the......

Boston.com is reporting that Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski is at Mass General Hospital after some chest pains, according to his spokesman, Dick Gordon. "Any time you are in the hospital, it's got to be pretty serious," was Gordon's reply to the predictable question. Yaz is 68 years old, but since he was always suspected of having a training regimen based more on lifting a lighter than a barbell, it's an old 68. Our thoughts and......

Did we promise we were finished with the Jason Bay puns? We don't think we did promise, technically. Anyway, it's appropriate, since Jason is now the King of Baltimore after slamming two home runs to help the Sox get back on track, 6-3 at Camden Yards. And if they don't name Maryland's most distinctive geographical after the kid, you can't blame us for trying. Bay hit a solo shot in the second and a 2-run......

Well...that sucked. Trying to stop a modest 1-game losing streak, Josh Beckett was turned into hamburger by the suddenly red-hot Blue Jay bats. The Jays shelled Josh for eight runs in less than three innings, and Beckett got the loss in a 15-4, 22-Toronto-hit massacre. "They were just really, really bad pitches. Well, good pitches to hit," said Beckett, and it's hard to argue. The Sox did scratch out a little offense - an RBI......

It turns out not every pitcher in the American League is as incompetent as those of the Rangers. Toronto sent ace and longtime Sox nemesis Roy Halladay to the Fenway mound last night, a day late, and he dazzled the Red Sox. Halladay went the distance, giving up only one run and seven hits, and spoiled a pretty decent debut by Paul Byrd, 4-1. Byrd scattered ten hits over 7 1/3, but one of those......

Due to rain, Friday night’s game was postponed. For those of you who had tickets, you can use them on September 13th for a day/night double header. Paul Byrd will make his debut in a Red Sox uniform tonight and look for Josh Beckett to pitch on Sunday. Who knows if these extra days off will work in the favor of Clay Buchholz, he’s had one miserable outing after another and we won’t be seeing......

A ten-run inning wasn't enough to hold a lead on Tuesday, but a nine-run inning was last night. That's partly just the vicissitudes of baseball, and partly the difference between wet-behind-the-ears Charlie Zink and pretty-reliable Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Sox pounded yet another hapless Texas pitcher (Tommy Hunter, and we wouldn't bother memorizing that name) for a nine-run second inning, highlighted by another Ortiz 3-run home run amid 13 Sox batters. Other offensive stars for the......

Were the folks at Fenway disappointed last night? 24 hours after the zany madcap roller coaster 19-17 win, the Red Sox came back and dispatched Texas in a much tidier fashion. They did it by riding a Kevin Youkilis hit parade and a (mostly) solid Jon Lester start to an 8-4 win. Youk got three doubles, the big one coming in the third and scoring two runs to make it 4-0. Jason Bay and Jed......

Folks got their money's worth at Fenway last night. But what do you say to recap the game? We were set to write about the big-league debut of knuckleballer Charlie Zink. Then we were going to write about the titanic 10-run first inning (Bostonist was returning from a weekend trip, and the first inning alone got us from near Meriden all the way up past Hartford and to Vernon. That's a good first inning.) and......

BREAKING SPORTS NEWS: RED SOX TRADE FOR BYRD Red Sox front office announced they completed a trade with the Cleveland Indians for pitcher, Paul Byrd. Byrd is currently 7-10 with a 4.10 era. If you remember last year during the ACLS, a story broke about Byrd’s spending $25,000 on HGH. Byrd admitted to using it under doctor’s care while he was recovering from an injury. Cleveland will receive either a player or cash in return.......

Before Bostonist introduces you to Charlie Zink, we’d like to discuss Josh Beckett’s 5-1 win last night against the Chicago White Sox. Even without David Ortiz in the line up, the Red Sox were able to leave the Windy City splitting the series and the Beckett we were use to seeing last season made another appearance. Beckett, who’s now 11-8, threw for eight innings, getting tagged for one run off of seven hits. He struck......

We've got one pitcher down, and one pitcher out. Not a great day for the Red Sox in Chicago yesterday. Out is Tim Wakefield, who has a soreness in his back or shoulder, depending on who you ask; it's the same nagging injury that made him miss the World Series last year. Wake was scheduled to start on Tuesday, so now obviously Tito has to make other arrangements. Down is Clay Buchholz, who just sinks......

Nice to see everything come together, isn't it? The Red Sox got some better-than-usual pitching from Daisuke Matsuzaka, some timely hitting, from some guys who needed to step it up, and some good luck as they evened their series with the White Sox in a 6-2 win. Dice was pretty fantastic, going eight innings and giving up only one run and only three walks. He got himself in trouble a couple of times, but induced......

For lack of a better term, Jon Lester has been the ace of the pitching staff this year. But last night Mark Buehrle and the Chicago White Sox, showed Lester and everyone else how it’s done. Buehrle’s performance helped lead the White Sox over the Red Sox 5 – 3. Buehrle gave up one run on four hits and he struck out eight, during his seven innings of work last night. Jon Lester also went......

Hank wasn’t there to get the crowd going and the normally loud crowd at Gillette seemed to have taken a Quaalude before the game. But then again, it’s not a real game. Nothing was at stake; even Tom Brady was bundled up on the sidelines like Nanook of the North. (Tom, it was 70 degrees.) Maybe it was the cool crisp air that got to the Pats, but even a push at the end didn’t......

Two Red Sox may have moved themselves off the "what's wrong with this guy?" list in Kansas City last night. Well, nothing's really been wrong with Tim Wakefield; although he went into last night 6-8, he's gotten miserable run support and has had to deal with the constant emotional roller coaster that is the lot of the knuckleballer. But he was awesome last night (6 innings, 4 hits, 1 ER, 6 Ks), even though Royals......

It's been a month and a half since any of our local teams even competed for, let alone won, a championship. And while the Revolution will soon have to get back to work to finally get over the hump and claim their first MLS Cup, they can at least bask in the glow of the SuperLiga title. The tournament, featuring a few MLS teams and a few Mexican teams, came down to the Revs vs.......

Dear Clay Buchholz, We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know why you keep losing. But feel free to stop whenever you feel like it. We’re not asking for you to throw a no hitter all of the time. But this whole losing thing you’ve got yourself into, it’s not working for us; especially when we’re three games behind the Devil Rays. Thanks for listening. After winning three at home, the Sox dropped one......

Was this team really in turmoil four days ago? (Yes.) Were we convinced that the swagger was gone for good? (Yeah, pretty much.) Did we think that losing a Hall of Fame slugger would come back to bite the Red Sox in the butt (We still kind of do, to be honest.) Whatever the future holds, let it be known that the Red Sox righted the ship in record time after the Angel sweep and......

We'll run out of Jason Bay-related headline puns soon enough, we promise. But we'll use them when we can, such as when reporting on Bay's first home run as a Red Sox, a three-run blast in the first that helped set the tone for the 12-2 massacre of Oakland yesterday at Fenway. Jon Lester had surrendered a two-run shot to Emil Brown in the first, but his offense gave him the leisure to cruise through......

The Manny Ramirez sycophants are still chirping, but whether they like it or not, the Jason Bay era has begun. Bay arrived in Boston and although, he didn’t get the police escort that Doug Mirabelli got when he returned back to Boston; he did receive a hero’s welcome. Not bad for a guy who’s been playing for a team that no one cares about. Last night, Bay and the Sox beat the Oakland A’s 2-1.......