If you ever find yourself doubting that miracles can happen, just remember this… after a dismal start to the season, the Seattle Mariners won their fifth in a row tonight, all five on the road, handing the Red Sox their first shut out at Fenway in a little more than a year.

Doug Fister threw over one hundred pitches and ninety-nine of them (it seems) were pressure pitches – with runners on base. Two or three times the Sox loaded the bases and came up empty. The M’s bullpen has run up a streak of more than a dozen scoreless innings; and Fister’s defense picked him up more than once. He gets the win and they get the credit. It was a gritty performance, one that should reassure all of us who occasionally (or more often) suck at our jobs (or at life) – every once in a while, it really is a team sport.

I haven’t written about the baseball season yet, for a lot of reasons, only one or two related to the baseball season. But tonight’s game deserves a shout out. It was ugly, and sometimes ugly gets the job done. (A good friend of mine said to me once, when I was having one of those really bad days – he said, you think you’ve blown it, but you haven’t really even been in the game yet. And remember, there are nine other players out there with you. Tonight’s game was a lot like that.)