AP photo / Bill Kostroun
Jacoby Ellsbury scores on a single by Shane Victorino for the go-ahead run in the 10th inning Thursday at Yankee Stadium.
They're likeable and resilient, these 2013 Boston Red Sox.
They won three very different and very entertaining games in the past three nights as they flashed their big arms, big bats and bigger personalities around Fenway Park and then Yankee Stadium.
The victories over the American League Central-leading Detroit Tigers and the longtime rival New York Yankees have helped give the Sox a six-game lead in the American League East with just 20 games left in the regular season, including three more this weekend against the Yankees.
It's a position that not even the sunniest of Sox fans could have imagined back in March, not with the collapse of the 2011 season and the season-long disaster of 2012.
But with the New England air turning crisp, baseball means something again this September, and thanks to familiar heroes like Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz, along with new ones like Shane Victorino and Koji Uehara, it looks like fun will continue for a while.