If Cleveland loses tonight, they should blame Paul Byrd.

Ok, no, they really should blame their third base coach who held Kenny Lofton on a clear shot at tying the game up after a hard hit single just past third by Franklin Gutierrez. Immediately following, the Sox get Casey Blake to ground into a double-play and all momentum — and hope — is lost.

In the next half of the inning, Dustin Pedroia (5 HRs in 520 at-bats this year) crushes a 2-run home run up into the Green Monster bleachers, and the game’s assumed its current identity: 5-2 Boston. Papelbon just shut down the top-8th.

Bear with this scattered entry, I’m trying to keep up with this game and the Denver/Pittsburg game, which is tied up with the Broncos driving down the field for a chance to take the lead with 33 seconds remaining.

Sidenote: I heart picture-in-picture (PIP).

The Broncos are about to let Jason Elam kick a 48-yard field goal for the win. Time-out called, stay tuned.

11:25p.m.
Jason Elam just kicked a 48-yard game-winner. Denver beats Pittsburgh 31-28. Maybe Mike Timlin should’ve waited until 1/8th of a second was left before the hike and called the “Shanahan.” (also known as “time-outs”) He called a Shanahan but it was a full 2 seconds before the kick took place. Learn from the vets, rook… learn from the vets!

11:30p.m.
J.D. Drew hits a single up the middle, scoring Mike Lowell, who got on by popping a double into the left-center gap. 6-2 Boston.

11:36p.m.
Just to rub in their bad luck, a fly ball into shallow left turns into a blooper reel, with Blake running into Peralta, resulting in a ground-rule double for Jason Varitek.

11:43p.m.
Pedroia must have dipped into Paul Byrd’s clubhosue stash. The tiniest grown man on Boston (scratch that, Lugo steals it by an inch) just hit a bases-clearing double — while the bases were loaded. This brings to mind cases of blatantly tiny players having games of their lives and the league needing to immediately embarrass them by drug-testing them on the field. Just as I say that, Kevin Youklis CREAMED a pitch off the Coke bottle sign above the Green Monster (11:48p.m). Same guerrilla testing method should apply. Less obvious here, but hey… he hits close enough to the even-more-suspicious Pedroia in the order to be guilty by line-up association. 11-2 Boston.

11:57p.m.
The Red Sox have officially won the pennant. Coco Crisp (looking up his real name now) just made and amazing game-ending catch in center-field. He limped back in to celebrate but if he’s not injured for real, surely the celebration will help push that along.

PARTING THOUGHTS

Not much to get down on Manny Ramirez for now, is there? The postgame is asking about the play with the 3rd base coach… Manny said he was probably going to head to the 2nd with the throw. I enjoy Manny on and off the field. Yes, he’s quite nonchalant more often than naught, and he refuses to be a leader but never went about it the same way Brett Favre refused to tutor Aaron Rodgers.

The Yankees are probably just as angry as ever and vowing to spend 100 million more on free agents. They may purchase Bud Selig if they haven’t already. Torre needs to go into witness protection because surely it’s his fault the BoSox are headed to the World Series. That’s why he received the underbid contract offer… because the Steinbrenners knew he couldn’t take the Yanks to the Series this year and couldn’t prevent their sworn enemies (no, not penny pinching teams like the Colorado Rockies… I speak of Boston, of course) from reaching their hallowed ground. Maybe the Yanks will fire Cashman and offer Theo Epstein a piece of China, two of his favorite South American countries and 5 get out of jail free cards… you heard the rumor first here!

So the World Series match-up is the Colorado Rockies versus the Boston Red Sox… game begins Wednesday. WHO YOU WIT?