How do you put the exclamation point on winning a series against the hottest team in the National League and the team you’re the odds-on favorite to meet in the World Series?

If you’re Mike Napoli, whose beard is hand-crafted from the finest children’s nightmares, you blast a two run homer, then step back into the dugout with your fists raised up in the air and screaming something incomprehensible to your fired-up teammates:

Naps was so crazy, in fact, it inspired Shane Victorino to take his own “homicidal grin” up a few notches:

napoli_victorino_crazy

For all the heroics of the offense, however, the star of this gave was Jake Peavy, who went the full nine while limiting one of the best line-ups in baseball to just three hits. The man’s ESPN photo was all kinds of creepy. But his pitching game was unstoppably awesome.

jake_peavy_happy

Going into last weekend’s series with the Dodgers, I only had two hopes: that we came out of LA with our pride intact, and that neither A-Gon or Carl Crawford got the better of us. The result was better than I expected. The Sox took the series, and could have swept all three with a couple timely hits on Friday. And although Gonzalez took Peavy yard, it was good to see Crawford returned to his natural order in the food chain–going 1-for-4 with two strikeouts.

In an August that has run mercurial at best, seeing the Sox steamroll the Dodgers got me all keyed up for the post-season. Bring on the World Series, I say. Bring it on.