Is it October yet? Living in California, the weather certainly isn’t a good indicator, so I usually rely on the intensity of the baseball season. That game felt like October baseball. Andy Pettite pitching in relief? The MFY so desperate for hitting that they used their emergency catcher? If games like this don’t get your blood pumping, then I’m guessing you’re already dead.

I had an entire post planned ripping Joe Morgan. I had pages and pages of stupid things he said over the course of the game to critique. This game was so intense that I don’t need any Morganisms to help me through a post.

Dice-K had moments in this game where he looked like a toad, and moments when he looked like a prince. Just for clarification, hitting A-Rod in the first inning was prince-like, not toad-like.

ESPN showed a hilarious shot of Tavarez talking Dice-K’s ear off during the Friday night game. Dice-K looked like he was praying for his cell phone to ring so he could say “I need to take this.” But it does explain where the toads come from.

The pendulum that was this game swung back to the Sox side right around when there were two outs in the 3rd inning. Manny hits one on Lansdowne (”Nice of him to get his swing back…too bad he couldn’t do it with runners on.”). Drew hits one over the bullpen (”Hey, we’re only down by one.”). Lowell also breaks somebody’s windshield on Lansdowne (”Holy shit, this thing’s tied up!”). Tek goes into the Monster seats (Disbelief. High-fiving. Screaming, like when people hit 7-7-7 on the slot machines in Vegas after deciding to put in $1 instead of the nickel slots they had been playing).

Four batters, 10 pitches, back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs. Fenway was going crazy. The dugout looked like a drunken frat party. If you were in a library following this game you better have been kicked out for going nuts. Suddenly the Sox had a 4-3 lead.

By the 7th, the Sox had already lost the lead and were down 5-4. That’s when Mike Lowell reminded us of what a stud he can be in the 7th with a go-ahead 3-run shot just over the red “home run line” on the Monster. Considering what he can do with only one ball, he makes all grown men feel like we are wasting our potential. Thanks a lot Mike.

But home runs alone do not define this Sox team. The last two innings were pitching and defense. Defense in the 8th when Pedroia made a Superman-like dive to snare a line drive that would have tied the game. As for pitching, well, we’ve got Paps.

The Sox swept the MFY at Fenway for the first time since 1990. They won all the games with seven runs (7-6, 7-5, 7-6). I think it’s a sign that I should start playing the slots.