Sighs of relief

A lot of good things happened in the series against the Giants, but if you're looking for key moments, they once again came from the Sox relievers:

• In Saturday's tight 1-0 game, Okajima came in in the eighth, gave up a walk and a hit, and then proceeded to get Bonds (strikeout, looking - read what Giants GM Brian Sabean had to say about that here), Molina (flyout) and Frandsen (ground out) to extinguish the fire.

• Yesterday, Giants trailing by three, bases loaded, one out - Joel Pineiro comes in and gets an inning-ending DP with his very first pitch.

Daisuke and Wake got the respective wins, but those two games were won in those two spots. In both cases I was already composing the "They're only human" post, only to be proved completely wrong. If being proved wrong on a daily basis means that we're going to win more games in this fashion, then I'm happy to take one for the team as long as it's needed.

The good news this Monday morning - above and beyond the sweep - is that after the shaky period the Sox went through earlier this month the standings still look like this:

The Sox lead the division by 8 1/2 games, their W-L over the last ten games now stands at a very respectable 7-3 and they still have the best record in baseball. Which mean that this:


is most definitely a glass half-full.

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Obsessive Anal-Retentive Game Counter: 55