Boston Red Sox defeat Texas Rangers, 2-0

With a little under three hours to go before the first pitch of a crucial series with the Red Sox, the Texas Rangers -- losers of four straight games -- looked anything but concerned about their immediate fate on the diamond.

Alfonso Soriano was interested in diamonds but only because representatives from a jewelry company were helping pick out the type of ring the former Yankee wanted for being named the MVP of July's All-Star Game.

A few feet from Soriano, a handfu...

The brains behind the Red Sox spent long winter nights calculating what it might take to end the franchise's 86-year championship famine. The more the Yankees loaded up -- hello, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Javier Vazquez, Kevin Brown, Tom Gordon, and Paul Quantrill -- the more the number crunchers on Yawkey Way figured the Sox needed to win to seize control of the American League East.

By the time they broke camp in Fort Myers, Fla., the Sox had developed a bluepri...