There was no way to finger-point, ignore the obvious and create the illusion of a two-sided situation Tuesday night at Fenway Park, when the Red Sox played a picture-perfect game in front of a sellout crowd on the first day of the Jimmy Fund telethon.
After a warm-hearted pregame ceremony created an unavoidable positivity in the century-old ballpark, the Sox played tight baseball for four innings, then exploded for an eight-run fifth and ran away with a 10-4 win against the St. Louis Cardinals.
To make the night even sweeter, 20-year-old rookie Rafael Devers started a 5-4-3 triple play in the fourth inning and, after the top of the seventh, 14-year-old Hannah Wertens, a cancer patient and Jimmy Fund participant, sang a dazzling version of God Bless America that should have made the Fenway grass stand up a little bit taller.