Smashing success

"I don't know, I never played in Japan," said reliever Brendan Donnelly, who got a couple of big outs in the eighth. "But I think, after watching these three games, if he's downplaying the rivalry, he might want to rethink it.

"Everybody knows it's a big thing. The media make it big -- it is big. It's legitimately the best rivalry in baseball and maybe in all of sports."

The Sox took the rivalry to a previously unknown dimension last night. Trailing, 3-0 -- a familiar theme in a series in which the Sox were behind by at least two runs in all three games -- the Sox hit four consecutive home runs off a Yankee rookie, lefthander Chase Wright, whose next appearance might come not a mound, but on a couch provided by the American Psychiatric Association.

"The game today was unbelievable," said Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis, who was hoarse from a throat ailment even before this one began. "The four home runs were ridiculous."

There were two outs and no one on when Manny Ramírez hit one just to the left of the Volvo sign in left-center field. J.D. Drew followed by hitting a home run over the Sox' bullpen in right-center. Home run No. 3 came from Mike Lowell, who nearly clipped the Coke bottles with a prodigious blast onto Lansdowne Street, and Jason Varitek gave the Sox a piece of history when he lined a home run into the Monster seats, the Sox the fifth team in major league history to hit four in a row.

"Man, that was fun to watch," Donnelly said. "I'll guarantee you none of us in this room has ever seen it. I feel for the pitcher a little bit. Just a little bit, because he's on the other side."

How's this for ridiculous: Donnelly was wrong about one thing. Drew also homered the last time this happened, Sept. 18, 2006 in Los Angeles, when the Dodgers hit four in a row with two outs in the bottom of the ninth against San Diego to tie a game that Nomar Garciaparra won with a home run in the 10th.