After getting pummelled by the Yankees in the series opener, the Sox last night struck back with a venegance and defeated the Yankees, 14-1 at Fenway to reduce our defecit to six-and-a-half games in the East, whilst increasing our Wildcard lead over the Texas Rangers to two whole games.

Junichi Tazawa produced his best perfromance yet as a Red Sox, tossing six innings of shutout baseball, allowing eight hits but working himslef out of trouble with a great splitter, deceptive fastball and a curveball that made A-Rod flinch more than once! (He is so used to guarding his face and flinching to avoid pitches that he even does it when it’s strike one on the outside corner, so, so funny)

The offense was right there behind the young Japanese starlet and battered A.J. Burnett around a lot. The Green Monster was peppered with balls all day with endless doubles pounding the out-of-town scoreboard off the bat of the latest Red Sox hitter, but Alex Gonzalez showed that he’s got a little Coke Bottle Power, sending one way out of Fenway for a solo shot.

Youk sent a three-run shot completely over everything in left and followed it up later on with his 22nd home run, to the last row of seats on top of the Monster. Big Papi, who is quielty putting a nice little season together for himself, added RBI number 75 with his 20th round-tripper of the campaaign, which also went into the Monster seats.

It was just a great day to be a Red Sox fan, who says it’s all over in the East just yet, hey?