And, just like that, there’s maybe a little bit of hope in the nation.  Maybe a little bit of dreaming.  Maybe a little bit of… swagger?

That was one good game last night – Felix Doubront held down the Yankees for 6 1/3 innings and one run – despite walking five – and the bullpen took over from there, eventually staking the Sox to a gritty 3-2, ten-inning win.  Pedro Ciriaco, Boston’s most unlikely but increasingly expected hero, singled softly into right field in the top of the tenth, scoring Jarrod Saltalamacchia for the win.

In fact, all the runs from both sides came from unexpected players last night.  Sox youngun Ryan Sweeney doubled in the second inning to score Slatalamacchia and Adrian Gonzalez.  New York’s Russell Martin – who currently has a .189 batting average –  put the Bombers on his back with a solo home run in the seventh and an RBI single in the eighth.

Meanwhile, New York’s Hiroki Kuroda also pitched really well.  He went eight innings, allowed only two runs, and only gave up one walk.

This is the kind of game that’s fun to watch.  This is the kind of game we hope for.  This is the kind of game the Sox need more of – a lot more of – if they’re going to stay in this race, because, and let’s not forget it: as of July 30, they’re a .500 team, and they have a long way to go if they’re going to sniff October.  There are six teams ahead of them in the Wild Card hunt right now: Oakland, the Angels, Detroit, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, and Toronto.  Now that there’s two wild cards, the Sox only need to be better than five of those six teams, but that’s still kind of a tall order.  The Angels currently hold the second wild card spot, and they’re at 55-47.  If they suddenly go .500 the rest of the way, then the Sox still have to go 34-26 just to tie them.  That 34-26 would be a .567 winning percentage, which means they’d have to play better than every American League team did in the first half except for the Yankees and Texas.

Playing better than all but two teams in the league, plus assuming that a team that’s been playing well will suddenly fall to earth for no apparent reason – those are odds I wouldn’t take to Vegas.  It’s possible, but the Sox have a very long haul ahead of them.  They really, really need Josh Beckett and Jon Lester to step up to the metaphorical plate – wins from Doubront are nice, but they’re not going to launch this team into the upper ranks of the American League in time.  As Yogi Berra said, it gets late early out there.

Boston’s long haul starts tonight, when Boston hosts Detroit at Fenway Park.  Clay Buchholz (8-3, 4.93 ERA) takes on Max Scherzer (10-5, 4.49 ERA) and the Tigers in a 7:10 start.

The Boston Red Sox won again last night, pushing themselves to two games over .500 with a 6-4 win over the Detroit Tigers.  The offense was the star last night.  David Ortiz and Will Middlebrooks each hit a two-run home run in the juggernaut fourth inning, and Kevin Youkilis continued his “I’m going to get traded soon” tour with his own solo jack over the Monster to lead off the eighth.

Jon Lester was ok.  Another start, another middling result – four runs on ten hits in 6.2 innings – and another no-decision.  Can we just make Felix Doubront pitch every day instead?

Center fielder Marlon Byrd was the defensive star – he made a ridiculous diving catch to retire Gerald Laird on a soft pop to center, ending the Detroit eighth.  Adrian Gonzalez, not so much – the first baseman who is playing right field missed a sliding catch of his own.  He made up for it with a torrid day at the plate, hitting two ground-rule doubles.

Here’s a link to the heavy-hitting box score, courtesy of the Red Sox.  Boston finishes up its homestand tonight against Detroit, before heading to Toronto.  Josh Beckett (4-4, 4.15 ERA) takes the hill against Max Scherzer (4-3, 5.67 ERA).

OK.  Now that we’ve recapped the game, can we talk about the more interesting things that happened yesterday?

Abductor muscle (Gray's Anatomy, c/o wikipedia.com)

First, Dustin Pedroia’s thumb.  It turns out that he tore the abductor muscle in his right thumb a few weeks ago, and that’s what’s keeping him out of the lineup now.  Google tells me that your abductor muscle is the muscle in the palm of your hand, going from your thumb to your wrist (the thick part of your palm).  It controls pretty much all of your ability to move your thumb.  So, tearing it doesn’t sound like a wonderful plan.

Of course, the Red Sox are being a little indecisive about what they’re going to do about Pedroia’s sudden inability to move his thumb in any direction.  But, everyone agrees that he can’t hit right now.  The Boston Herald reports that Pedroia is trying out a thumb brace to see if he can play through the injury, but it will be a few days before anything becomes clear.  We all know that Pedroia is gritty, gutty, dusty, etc., and that he hates to sit out games – so, putting him on the disabled list is something the Red Sox appear to want to do only reluctantly.  But, because of Boston’s reluctance to put Pedroia on the DL, the Sox can’t make any roster moves to help out the sudden dearth of middle infield players.  When asked by reporters, manager Bobby Valentine said that “we’re going to let some higher beings make that decision. God hasn’t returned the phone call yet, but I’ve been promised he will.”  I’m sure that God will get right on that, Bobby.

Tito in a towel (c/o deadspin.com)

Second, Terry Francona’s towel.  Deadspin came out with this nugget yesterday.  It looks like Francona – ex-Red Sox manager and soon to be ex-husband – has been sending some pretty salacious texts and emails to some guy Rob’s girlfriend.  And Rob’s girlfriend has been sending a few pretty salacious texts and emails back.  Tito’s 53 years old, and the girlfriend is, it sounds like, in her early 30s.  The two met recently through their mutual connections to the University of Arizona (she lives in Tuscon, Francona played there).

I mean, what can we say about this?  It’s a little sketchy, since Terry’s 20 years older than her, and she has a boyfriend.  We’ve also built Tito up to be this angel on a white horse lately, and that’s just not the case.  But, people are just human, and public personas often don’t match up to private lives.  This twist is interesting, but ultimately just talk and gossip.