Cleveland 3
Boston 5

Last night, the Red Sox handed the Indians a small pox-infected blanket, defeating the AL Central powerhouse on the evening of Trot Nixon’s return.  Nixon was visibly misty-eyed at the plate while the Fenway crowd gave the discarded right fielder a hearty ovation, before lining a base hit to our new right fielder in an act of uncanny symbolism. 

Curt Schilling was phenominal, pitching 7 strong innings, with 10 Ks, no walks, 6 hits, and 1 earned run, leaving to a standing ovation of his own at the end of the 7th.  The bullpen decided to make this one interesting, and almost pissed away the game. Our loogies (J.C. Romero and Javier Lopez) were both ineffective, and Jonathan Papelbon came very close to forking over the lead in the 9th, allowing a walk and 2 doubles. However, he got Travis Hafner (Cleveland’s resident ogre) to chase the high heat to end the game.

Offensively, the team was carried by a multitude of players, on a night where David Ortiz was out of the lineup, as the slugger is still feeling tightness.  The crowd was actually treated to a strange cosmic phenomenon at one point, as the game briefly entered the Twilight Zone in the 7th inning.  You know the Twilight Zone: it’s a place where Estelle Getty wins the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, a place where George W. Bush wins 5 straight episodes of “Jeopardy”, a place where Stephen Hawking wins the 100-yard-dash…you get the point.  Anyway, while the world was stuck in the Twilight Zone, Kevin Youkilis managed to hit an inside-the-park home run.  The odds of Youk accomplishing this feat are roughly the same as the odds of Chris Farley’s rotting corpse clawing its way out of the earth, grabbing a bat, and hitting a four-bagger.

To go along with the strange happenings in the 7th inning, J.D. Drew managed to get on base 3 times, and Dustin Pedroia had a perfect night, going 3-3 with a walk, and boosting his OPS to .815 on the year. 

Tonight, the ace is back, as Josh Beckett (7-0, 2.66) returns to face soft-tossing control freak Jeremy Sowers (1-4 6.29)