On any other day...

...when you wake up this Monday and pull out the sports section of your friendly neighborhood newspaper of choice (if you're fortunate enough to afford home delivery or the splurge at the local convenience store), you'll probably scan the box scores to see, among others, the Bostonian listing with a more-than-typical 6-5 victory over the surprisingly spry Baltimore Orioles.

Assuming you're NOT reading the Boston Globe or any other New England rag, you'll probably mark this as yet another in a string of victories for our Red Hot Sox. You probably won't care about the Who, the Where, the When, or maybe even the Why. But you SHOULD care about the How. HOW did they do it?

Let me rewind for you...

Pre-game expectations were largely focused upon Josh Beckett's bid to start the season 8-0 in his first 8 starts and Boston's bid to keep pace with the Brewers in the NL for the best record in Major League Baseball. After all, Beckett has dominated for the most part while being the recipient of some of the best run-support of any starter in the league - and the Sox DID take 15 out of 18 from the O's last year and 22 out of the last 26 (including Friday night's debacle). And Beckett didn't disappoint - although he gave up a couple of early runs, he had struck out 7 through the first 4 innings and looked like he was settling into a groove - the kind of groove that has been nearly impossible to knock him out of once he gets it going.

Then blister problems struck for Josh (like the 78th time in his career I'm guessing) and in comes Kyle Snyder to pick up the slack. And before you know it, some relief pitcher named Jeremy Guthrie making only his fourth start is shutting the powerful BoSox out through 8 EASY innings.

Then comes the 9th... oh, that sticky 9th inning. Julio Lugo grounded out to start the inning and many impatient patrons who hadn't left already started streaming towards the exits. Julio must've thought that after his steaming hot start to the series that this was a poetically cruel way to end it. I'm guessing he was thinking about how he'd do better versus the Tigers... but only for a moment. Coco Crisp reached first on a misplayed popup and next came Big Papi - ringing double off the left center field wall and its 5-1. Ok... no shutout. Phew.

Following a Wily Mo Pena single that pushes Ortiz to third, the O's bring in their closer to stop the minor leak that has put the tying run in the on-deck circle. Two walks later, it's 5-2 and El Capitan V-Tek is at the dish with his lovely pink Mother's Day bat (NOT the most fearsome sight I might add). Well, Pinky and Mr. Spaulding met and thanks to a little bobble in right center, the go-ahead runs are in scoring position. 5-4 Baltimore. And up comes Alex Cora.

Now, everyone in the park is thinking that Alex Cora has yet to fail in the clutch this YEAR: go ahead triple versus Toronto, two-run single on Saturday, and the list is LONGER. And so would I have been (if I hadn't turned the game off in the 8th for fear of physically damaging something has they lost)... oops, fielder's choice eliminates a run at the plate and we're down to our last out. Guess who?

Yep. Mr. Lugo. Again, I can probably predict the thought processes of 95% of the fans in attendance: he started this inning poorly, and he'll probably end it that way too. Well, it sure looked like it - a bounding grounder wide of first that ex-Red Sock Kevin Millar fielded cleanly and threw slightly behind the pitcher covering. The play would have been close but few would argue that Julio was going to be out. The ball is dropped, knocked slowly into foul territory and Tek and Hinkse score to complete the 6-run 9th and a stunning 6-5 victory to take the series 2 out of 3.

I honestly think that the touchdown posted on the Seattle Mariner scoreboard this afternoon took the gas out of the yankee attack... leading to a 2-1 defeat and an 8 game deficit in the AL East.

I had prepared an asterisk labeled link to the inevitable demise of our Bostonian crew on my blog so that I might briefly discuss how this game MIGHT have signaled a change in momentum for this season - especially with the pitching-laden, heavy-hitting Detroit Tigers coming to town for a 4-game set - but thanks to some late game heroics that thought is but a distant memory.

No asterisk today... that will have to wait for Barry Bonds a couple of months from now.