This is the sound of change.
The hum of trade talk, the caws from a Boston media that says each shutout inning means a better outfield bat coming to Fenway, the rumble of Pawtucket's bus carrying John Smoltz to his last rehab start in Syracuse. The whoosh of a redeveloped fastball, the click of a speed gun that reads 98, nine silent Yankee bats.
Then, in Terry Francona's postgame press conference, silence.
After six shutout innings against the second-best team in the AL East, there was not one question, allusion, or whisper of Brad Penny being traded.
"We had to leave him out there," said Francona after the Red Sox' 4-3 win over the Yankees last night. "He was the best he's been at just about everything. He was downhill with his velocity. However he was gripping it, I don't know, he had some depth to it."
It wasn't the grip that changed. It was Penny's position on the mound that had been altered. Pitching coach John Farrell moved him to the third base side of the rubber from the first base side.
But these are semantics.
What really changed was the stage. Penny was the consummate Red Sox player on a night when he asserted the team's dominance over the Yankees. And he did it in every way.
Aside from his ace-like stuff, Penny hit Alex Rodriguez in the side with a pitch in the first inning. It was aggressive pitching that established position - neither Penny nor Rodriguez said it was intentional.
But to Sox fans, it was an initiation.
Five strikeouts later, he was more than just trade bait.
"I have no idea [about the trade talk]," Penny said. "I've just got to go out there and keep working."
Smoltz probably watched all this happen. He was cooped up in a clubhouse in Syracuse, N.Y., yesterday, watching the rain that would eventually dampen Fenway and postpone his last rehab start with Pawtucket.
After last night, Penny and Smoltz probably won't be an either/or conversation. And Penny is looking at it the same way.
"To get a guy like Smoltz at this point in the season, it's definitely going to help us," said Penny. "So I mean, who knows? Just got to go out there and keep pitching."
And he may have plenty more chances.
