“Oh, it was ridiculous,’’ Ortiz said. “It’s something that you’re watching and you’re just like, ‘Damn!’ I think this is what makes people feel like they do about it and makes them want to come out and watch it.
“It’s like a playoff game.’’
Does it really matter who wins the division or the wild card?
“Both teams are trying to win the division, I mean, but we’ve got a long ways to go,’’ second baseman Dustin Pedroia said. “It might not seem like it, but it’s a lot of games left.
“We’re just going to play as hard as we can to the end and see what happens.’’
Yet it would be a point of pride to win the AL East.
“If you gave me my choice I’d say I’d rather win the division because that means you came in first place,’’ said manager Terry Francona, who has taken the Sox to the playoffs five times during his tenure, once as a division champion and four times as a wild card. That includes 2005, when the Sox finished the regular season tied with the Yankees atop the AL East with 95-67 records, but wound up ceding the division to the Yankees by virtue of their better head-to-head record.
The Sox, who have won 10 of their first 12 meetings vs. the Yankees this season, have already clinched the tie-breaker.
“When you set out to compete you want to be the best,’’ Francona said. “Saying that, when you begin the playoffs, you have a day and a half to prepare and you don’t really sit around and think about your pride or your sense of accomplishment.
“You’re getting ready for the next team. So we probably don’t sit around and think about it. We’ve won coming from the wild card and we’ve lost. There’s advantages, obviously, to playing at home and things like that, but what’s more important is the team feeling good about themselves and being healthy.’’
But the importance of winning the division was not lost on anyone in the clubhouse.
“Shoot, since I’ve been here, the year we won the division, we won the World Series,’’ Pedroia pointed out.
