At the end of the day

When Seanez came in and gave up a three-run home run on the first pitch he saw, I was about ready to call it a day, but since it was too late to go back to bed, I thought I might as well stick with the game. Six two-out eighth-inning runs later, and the Sox were back up on top, 9-5.

The end result was the one we wanted, but the route the Sox took to get there was tortuous, to say the least. Schilling gave up just two earned runs over 6 innings, but the bullpen once again made things interesting by giving up 5 earned runs over the following 1 2/3 innings. After an evening of inanities from the ESPN broadcast team (Joe Morgan: "You can't hit a two-run home run with no-one on base"), I hate to attribute the quote of the game to Jon Miller, but he nailed it in the bottom of the eighth: "Papelbon comes on and puts an end to the foolishness." Yes, indeed. 23 saves and an ERA of 0.25 - I'm glad he's pitching for us and not against us.