Dustin Pedroia has vaulted to the forefront of the American League Most Valuable Player race with some astoundingly hot hitting recently - he's batting .480 over the last two weeks, with five homers in 59 at-bats, and there are various other small sample sizes that are just as impressive (he's batting .615 thus far in September, for instance).

But what's truly remarkable is that Pedroia's actually been a non-stop offensive force since the early days of summer.

On June 13, Pedroia was batting .260, with a .311 on-base percentage and a .676 OPS. The batting average was his low-water mark of the season, excluding the first few games. (Silly full-disclosure: He was hitting .182 three games into the schedule. Slacker.)

The next day, Pedroia had two hits in a 6-4 victory over Cincinnati, raising his average to .262. Save for the rare 0 for 4, his average has done nothing but rocket skyward since then.

Check out these crazy numbers: In 69 games - almost half the season so far - and 283 at-bats since June 13, Pedroia has 112 hits, including 12 of his 17 homers. His batting average since that date?

.396.

Again:

Three-ninety-six.

You probably know the rest: He's leading the AL in hitting (.333), hits (191), and runs (110) his slugging percentage is now over .500 (.505), and his OPS is all the way up to .883.

And that, sports fans, is how you become an MVP candidate: for 2 1/2 months, you punish the baseball like it was one of your detractors.

The Red Sox thrilled the faithful at Fenway Park yet again, winning in the bottom of the ninth on a day when they tied Cleveland's record for most consecutive sellouts.

"Compared to what it was yesterday, it's night and day," Alex Cora, who scored the game-winning run, said of the thrill of the victory. "But a win is a win. We have some momentum going into Texas. So we'll have a great off day tomorrow and get ready for Friday."

Cora led off the ninth with a single, then advanced to second on Coco Crisp's bunt single, which stayed fair after looking like it might go foul. Jacoby Ellsbury then bunted to pitcher Jim Miller, who tried to get Cora at third, but air-mailed the ball into left field.

* Yet another big day for Dustin Pedroia. The second baseman kicked off the comeback with a solo homer in the seventh. Pedroia doubled in the eighth and scored the game-tying run. "I'm very proud of what he's doing," Cora said. "Everybody knows what happened to him last year in the first month of the season. We kept pushing him, talking to him. He probably thought that everybody didn't believe in him, but there were a lot of people in this clubhouse that did."

* The Sox got some shutdown innings from Javier Lopez and Justin Masterson, who kept the Orioles scoreless for the final three innings and limited them to a single hit. Terry Francona said that had Ramon Hernandez reached base in the ninth, he would have gone to Jonathan Papelbon to face leadoff hitter Brian Roberts. But Masterson got Hernandez looking on a 2-2 pitch.

* Jonathan Van Every was optioned to Pawtucket after the game. He will play for the PawSox tonight.

Home plate umpire Jeff Nelson has ejected Baltimore coach Terry Crowley.

It's believed that Crowley was arguing the called third strike at the end of the ninth.

Mark Kotsay, who turned a perfect 3-5 double play in the top of the eighth, has tied the game with a two-run triple.

Rocky Cherry is out and Jim Miller has come in to face Jason Bay with one out and Kotsay on third.

Dustin Pedroia has two runs and three hits.

Mark Kotsay, who turned a perfect 3-5 double play in the top of the eighth, has tied the game with a two-run triple.

Rocky Cherry is out and Jim Miller has come in to face Jason Bay with one out and Kotsay on third.

Dustin Pedroia has two runs and three hits.

Mark Kotsay, playing first base today, turned a perfect 3-5 double play to end the top of the eighth. Kotsay stepped on first to retire Luke Scott, then threw to Jed Lowrie, who tagged out Oscar Salazar.

Baltimore, 4-2.

With two out and the bases loaded and Coco Crisp due, Rocky Cherry has taken over for Jamie Walker.

Baltimore leads 4-1, with Dustin Pedroia having taken Walker deep earlier in the seventh.

Daisuke Matsuzaka's day is over, having gone six innings and allowing four runs (three earned). He has been relieved by Javier Lopez.

Matsuzaka gave up four hits, struck out seven, and walked four. Matsuzaka threw 112 pitches (73 strikes).

Matsuzaka was hoping to break Hideo Nomo's record of 16 wins, most by a Japanese native.

With five innings complete at Fenway Park, today's game is official, which means the Red Sox have tied the major league record with their 455th consecutive home sellout. The streak began May 3, 2003.

The mark equals the standard set by the Cleveland Indians from June 12, 1995 to April 2, 2001. Judging by Indians owner Larry Dolan's comments at the time, it's fair to say he expected the franchise to hold the record longer than seven years.

"I believe it's safe to say that this amazing feat of consecutive sellouts will never be matched," said Dolan. "I hope our fans take great pride in setting the standard in major league baseball."

A few other fun facts about the now-shared standard:

* Entering today's game, the Red Sox had a .650 winning percentage at Fenway during the streak (295 wins, 159 losses).

* In the first 454 games, they clubbed 528 home runs, scored 2,719 runs, their pitchers threw 66,624 pitches, and the total attendance was 16,261,159.

* It's the longest active sellout streak in the four major professional sports.

* The longest streak in any sport belongs to the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, who sold out 744 straight games from 1977-95.

* Only two current Red Sox were in the lineup during the 9-1 victory over the Twins that began the streak: Jason Varitek and David Ortiz.

* The day before it began, the Red Sox lost to the Twins, 11-7, in front of a crowd of 31,317. Ramiro Mendoza took the loss for the Sox, while a young lefthander named Johan Santana was the winning pitcher for Minnesota in relief.

Javier Lopez is warming in the bottom of the sixth, which indicates that Daisuke Matsuzaka's day might be over.

Matsuzaka has allowed four runs (three earned) through six innings.

Jacoby Ellsbury, playing right field today, took a homer away from Aubrey Huff in the fifth.

After taking one look down to see where he was, Ellsbury jumped and caught Huff's clout, preventing it from entering the Baltimore bullpen.

Dennis Sarfate has relieved Lance Cormier to start the bottom of the fourth.

Cormier, a reliever, allowed two hits in three innings. Twenty-seven of his 32 pitches were strikes.

Daisuke Matsuzaka threw 31 pitches in the fourth inning. He is up to 89 pitches.

Baltimore, 4-0.

Javier Lopez is warming in the bullpen. Daisuke Matsuzaka has allowed three runs in the fourth.

Daisuke Matsuzaka struck out the side in the second, getting swinging third strikes with three different pitches: changeup (Luke Scott), slider (Lou Montanez), fastball (Guillermo Quiroz).

Matsuzaka, however, is already up to 50 pitches through two innings.

Daisuke Matsuzaka threw 28 pitches in the first inning. Matsuzaka threw 10 pitches to Nick Markakis.

Baltimore, 1-0.

Coco Crisp's 84-game errorless streak ended in the first inning, when the center fielder dropped a Nick Markakis fly ball. Crisp last committed an error on April 24.

Kevin Youkilis is out of the lineup for the second straight game with an aching back, and Mark Kotsay will start at first base today against Baltimore.

Dustin Pedroia will again hit in Youkilis's customary cleanup spot.

"Not as good as we'd hoped," Terry Francona said when asked about Youkilis's back. "He's here but he's not going to play."

Kotsay, primarily a center fielder throughout his career, has played 28 games at first base in his 12-year big-league seasons. His most recent experience at the position came in 2006, when he played four games there while a member of the Oakland A's. He made two errors in 30 chances for a .933 fielding percentage.

"His actions are good," Francona said of Kotsay. "He just hasn't been out there very much. You don't want to put somebody in a position where they make an error because of, not inexperience, but he hasn't been out there a long time. But his actions are fine. I think he'll be OK. You worry when you send someone out there who hasn't played there that much, because you don't want them to do something they wouldn't normally do. But he has no problems with this."

Francona was asked about putting smooth-fielding first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz at second base for one game in 2004, and whether that situation was comparable to playing Kotsay at first. "This isn't like that," Francona said. "My heart was in my throat that night. That was a tough one."

Mientkiewicz helped record a double play that game, and Francona said he might have been the only player on the roster who could have made the turn.

* Francona said Mike Lowell (oblique) and Sean Casey (neck) could play Friday against Texas. Lowell has not played since Aug. 11, while Casey's last appearance was Aug. 19.

* The Sox are expected to tie Cleveland's record of 455 consecutive home sellouts today. "I've not seen anything but sellouts since I've been here," Francona said. "Think about that. That is unbelievable. It's the norm. And I hope we don't ever get to the point where we take it for granted. I know the organization doesn't. We don't take it for granted. We have a great situation here right now. Our team is very popular. Fans just want to keep coming to the games. Hopefully that will last for a long time."

While you're twiddling your thumbs waiting for the Red Sox and Orioles to square off in the decisive third game (did you detect the sarcasm?) of their series this afternoon (1:35 p.m. start), you should check out our Red Sox confidence meter, a daily snapshot of how fans are feeling about the Old Towne Team's playoff chances.

Currently, more than 96 percent of readers think they'll end up with a spot in the postseason. Seventy-nine percent of you think they'll end up with the wild card and 17 percent believe they'll overtake the Rays in the AL East (up almost 2 percentage points from yesterday).

Still, less than half of you think the Red Sox have what it takes to win the World Series (47.8 percent), a number that's sure to go up again (it has increased more than 3 percent since yesterday) if the Red Sox complete a three-game sweep today (and that appears likely with Daisuke Matsuzaka on the mound facing Lance Cormier, who'll be making his first start of the season.)

Click here to get your vote counted today ...

Baltimore

Roberts, 2B
Payton, CF
Markakis, RF
Huff, 3B
Salazar, 1B
Scott, DH
Montanez, LF
Cintron, SS
Quinoz, C
Cormier, SP

Boston

Ellsbury, RF
Lowrie, 3B
Ortiz, DH
Pedroia, 2B
Kotsay, 1B
Bay, LF
Varitek, C
Cora, SS
Crisp, CF
Matsuzaka, SP