YA KNOW WHAT? WE'RE GOING TO WIN THE DIVISION ANYWAY.

Red Sox vs. Yankees. Bottom of the ninth. Bases loaded. Down by one run. Rivera versus Ortiz. Their best pitcher against our best hitter. Best versus best. A 2-2 count. It doesn't get much more tense than that in the regular season.

Unfortunately for us Sox fans, it didn't work out like we would've hoped. Ortiz swung but couldn't quite get it and popped out. Derek Jeter did his obnoxious little fist clenching thing that he does, and the Yankees won, 4-3.

Give Rivera credit, he threw a great pitch. Pretty much only his second great pitch of the nigh as he spent the majority of the inning throwing pretty badly. If Ortiz hadn't swung he'd likely have been called out on strikes. The best case scenario for Ortiz was to foul the pitch back, but he got a little too much of the ball.

I hate to lose this game, but the Sox made a valiant comeback after Jeter's gutshot three run homer off Schilling in the eighth. I hate to lose this game, but the truth is that the Sox are still 4.5 games up. We're going to win the division and we're going to the playoffs, obnoxious fist pump or not.

The Sox were only one hit away. They undeniably got to Chamberlain almost scoring in the seventh and then scoring in the eighth. They got to Rivera, and almost beat him. Schilling pitched magnificently through 7.2 innings. He was one pitch from keeping the Yankees to one run through eight. My Man Manny Delcarmen came in and pitched effectively shutting down New York and keeping the the deficit at three.

All in all, this wasn't a bad effort from the Boston Nine. I'm disappointed in the outcome, but optimistic that this season will still end on a high note. This type of comeback speaks highly of this team, even if they didn't end up coming all the way back.

***

Overall

This series was very close. On huge win sandwiched around two one run loses. The Sox were in position to take all three games but only came away with one. Oddly enough, they were able to beat up on Pettitte, Wang, Chamberlain, and Rivera in those three games, but couldn't score enough against the rest of the Yankees scrubs.

Also, they managed to outscore the Yankees in the series, for whatever thats worth (not much).

***

Schedule

The Red Sox have twelve games left in the season. They play those games in fourteen days. They start with three in Toronto starting tomorrow. Then after an off day, they have three in Tampa Bay. After their last off day, they come back to Boston for two against Oakland, and then four against Minnesota finishes up the season.

The Yankees play three versus Baltimore, and four versus Toronto all in New York. Then they go on the road for six games. The first three are in Tampa and the final three are in Baltimore.

With competition like that, the Sox are going to have to keep winning to keep New York at bay. It should be an interesting two weeks.

AL East: NY is 4.5 back of Boston.

Tomorrow (Monday): Tim Wakefield goes against Dustin McGowan. Game time 7:07pm EST.