Four hours, 21 minutes.  Eleven innings.  Just another typical battle between the Red Sox and Yankees.  There’s 17 more of these to go this year?  To be honest, it will be hard for another 2009 game between these teams to be better than last night’s game.  In fact, we’re only at game 16, but there may not be a better Sox game all year.

For a good portion of last night’s game…it was a frustrating thing to watch as a Sox fan.  Between the time that Ellsbury scored from second on a wild pitch in the first inning to Bay’s dramatic shot off Rivera in the 9th, the Sox were not playing their ‘A’ game.

- Jon Lester was good, but not great.  He deserves kudos for keeping his team in the game and pitching thru 6.  He was always working with men on base and had some bad luck (broken bat singles, infield choppers turning into singles).

- The sox offense was terrible.  They had leadoff runners on many times, but did not get productive outs and hit into a ton of double plays. The big hit was ellusive.  And to be honest, there was little reason to believe that Bay would come up with one in the bottom of the ninth.

- Papi did little more than stike out.

This morning. there will be much to read about the dramatic moments of Bay and Youklis.  Probably a little bit about Papi’s struggles, too.  What last night meant to me was a turning of the page in The Rivalry.  There is a new generation of players taking center stage in the Sox Yankees feud.  The old guard – like Papi – are becoming bit players.

There was the starting pitching matchup of Jon Lester and Joba Chamberlain.  A matchup we could be seeing often for the next 5 years.

And the signature moments of last night’s game came from Ellsbury (scoring from 2nd on a 1st inning wild pitch), Bay (2 run game tying shot off Mariano Rivera with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth that barely cleared the monster), and Kevin Youklis (epic over the wall, walk off HR in the 11th).  All 3 of these guys are ready to be the headliners of the rivalry for years to come.