Thursday night’s first base umpire in Anaheim, C.B. Bucknor, can expect a vintage New England greeting when he is introduced before Game 3 at Fenway Park on Sunday. Having turned in a wretched performance in Game 1- replays on high-def TV gave him two clearly blown calls - Bucknor lived up to his reputation as [...]

Though the clinching’s circumstances merit such a disclaimer, don’t tell anyone from the Red Sox that they backed into the American League wild-card berth. Yes, they’ve lost five straight games, and yes, players left Fenway Park after Tuesday night’s 8-7 loss to Toronto and then returned to celebrate the Angels’ 5-2 win over Texas in [...]

Generally speaking, the Red Sox’ bullpen is rolling along as one of the team’s strengths, certainly a large part of any discussion concerning Boston’s chances for a long playoff run. That doesn’t mean all is necessarily well with every member of the relief corps as decisions are about to be made on postseason roles.
Daniel Bard [...]

It is tempting, in the afterglow of a 10-0 win in which Clay Buchholz worked seven shutout innings and the Red Sox walloped six home runs, to believe that all is swell and that the Texas Rangers are destined to disappear in the rear-view mirror.
Well, such happy thoughts need to come with a large disclaimer: The [...]

Thanks to the Red Sox’ series win at Tampa Bay, it is safe to say that there will be a new American League champion this season. The Rays now find themselves six games behind Boston in the wild-card race with 29 games to play. It would take a charge of epic proportions, not to mention [...]

Josh Beckett looked better than awful Wednesday night in the Red Sox’ 8-5 loss to Tampa Bay, so should we presume that The Ace is on the road to recovering his superior skills? After tumbling into a 5-1 hole, Beckett did manage to look more like his old self for the duration of his outing, [...]

The mating dance with aging Mets reliever Billy Wagner is ending, Daisuke Matsuzaka may actually be ready to pitch in September and October and Josh Beckett’s recent woes look fixable. Toss in Monday night’s thrashing of White Sox has-been Jose Contreras and there is nothing but good news this morning for the Red Sox.
Having claimed [...]

Ah, just when we arrived to bury them after their worst week in memory, the Red Sox roar back and beat the Tigers twice. And not only have they cooled a hot team, they let loose with some emotion.
Kevin Youkilis charges the mound, sufficiently startling the daylights out of Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello that the [...]

 Maybe they’ll begin to right themselves tonight when they open a four-game series at Fenway against the Tigers. Maybe the sight of The Wall and the sounds of the faithful will have them all hitting like it was May. Maybe a flock of pigs will do a flyover during the seventh-inning stretch.
What NESN dubbed “Rivalry [...]

Going on the theory that the Yankees’ 13-6 win Thursday night was, as suggested by one Globe subhead, a case of The Empire making a statement, the fear should be that it was simply the start of a missive that may not be finished until late Sunday night, if not early Monday morning.
If one piece [...]