It can happen any night...

Why do we love sports? Because you never know when you're going to see something like this...

Dustin Pedroia :

Ball, Foul, Ball, Foul, Foul, Foul, Pickoff attempt, Ball, Ellsbury stole second, Foul, Foul, Foul, Foul, Foul, Pedroia singled to center, Crawford and Ellsbury scored.

That's the line on the 5th inning at-bat for Dustin Pedroia vs. Jered Weaver. Weaver came in as the best pitcher in baseball, and looked it. But the Red Sox, trailing 2-1, put two runners on with two outs in the 5th, and Pedroia came to the plate with Weaver having thrown 93 pitches, and on a pace to get through 7 innings, at least. And then Pedroia fouled off a tough pitch. And another. And another. He ended up fouling off nine pitches, eight of them with two strikes, and finally driving a pitch up the middle to score two runs.

It was a captivating moment, one of the moments that you get in a baseball game that you don't see coming, and it's a joy when it happens. (Probably less of a joy for Angels fans, of course, but that's always the way these things work.)

Not only did Pedroia's hit give the Sox the lead, the thirteen pitches raised Weaver's pitch count to 106, and the Red Sox ended up teeing off on the Angels bullpen in the 7th, instead of facing Weaver for one more inning. And when the 2011 Red Sox story is over and written, that's very likely an at-bat that's going to be remembered...