Boston Red Sox defeat Toronto Blue Jays, 5-4

As hard as Pedro Martinez went in his previous outing, when he morphed into vintage Pedro and hurled nine shutout innings, the real toll came this week.

He decided to run his body hard between starts, and that, Martinez said, made him labor at times against the Blue Jays last night.

Maybe that made what he did all the more impressive. Martinez battled through seven innings without his best stuff, surrendering four runs on eight hits in the Red Sox' dramatic 5-4 win a...

Oh, those wacky Red Sox. Nothing like a little levity to take the edge off a playoff race. That's why Terry Francona's merry pranksters last night let Manny Ramirez lead the charge out of the dugout in the first inning against the Blue Jays -- only for the rest of the starters to remain in the dugout while Ramirez jogged to left field believing his teammates were right behind him.

Even when Manny discovered the joke was on him as he stood alone in the field, his teammat...

Let's say Boston is the sun of the baseball universe, where hope and criticism burn bright, where a city revolves around the game.

Staying with the metaphor, that would make Montreal baseball's Pluto, a cold, dreary place way out on the fringes.

That was the magnitude of the adjustment facing shortstop Orlando Cabrera.

But after looking overmatched by the daunting task of going from baseball afterthought to baseball epicenter, Cabrera delivered his best moment as ...