MLB

Nothing decided in AL East by Boston marathon

BOSTON — One more time, it would be Mariano Rivera against the Red Sox, the Yankees one run to the good, needing three outs to slip back into first place. In the epic history of these teams, you could devote three whole chapters to this one topic: the ball in Rivera’s fingers, the ballgame in his hand, and what follows from there.

He has tormented the Sox plenty, of course. But on back-to-back nights in 2004, Rivera was charged with blown saves, the first two baby steps on the Red Sox’s path toward a genuine baseball miracle. Sox fans even recognized this by giving Rivera a standing ovation the next April, a thunderous ovation that brought a smile to his face as he doffed his cap.

On this night, they would get him again: Marco Scutaro would slap one against the Wall, Jacoby Ellsbury would bunt him over, Dustin Pedroia would drive him in, and the game would inch into extra innings, careen past the four-hour mark.

BOX SCORE

An inning later the Sox would finish it off, Josh Reddick would send Phil Hughes trudging off the mound, and the people would thrill to a 3-2 Sox win, their 10th in 12 meetings against the Yankees this year, re-taking first place, sending the Yankees home on a sour note.

In truth, both teams could feel good about what they found out about themselves across 4 hours and 15 minutes of this game, across all three days of the series.

For the Red Sox, it feels a little bit better, of course, because they won two of three, because on the weekend they proved again they can beat CC Sabathia, a crucial fact come autumn. For the fourth time they laid a beating on Sabathia, this time after CC had gone close to two months without absorbing a true bashing.

And it was also a reminder that because the Red Sox play the Yankees 18 times a year, they are as familiar with the great Rivera as anyone. And, as they’ve proven before, can reach him as well as anyone. It was only his second blown save since May, but it will sting a little more because of who it came against.

“We’ve seen him do it time after time after time, so it’s always surprising when some team gets to Mo,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “But this is baseball. We’ll bounce back from this. We’ll be OK.”

In fact, despite the sour way it ended, the Yankees did drag some positives away from the weekend as well. They won the first one by rallying back from a 2-0 deficit off Jon Lester, and they came back last night after spotting Josh Beckett an early run, Eduardo Nunez launching a titanic blast off Beckett to tie the game, Brett Gardner nudging them out ahead in the seventh with his own sizable shot to right-center off Matt Albers.

There is a message to be gleaned by these two timely rockets, one was struck by the Yankees’ No. 9 hitter, the other by the man who spent most of the season in that same slot, emphasizing (as if that were necessary) just how long and vast the Yankees’ order is.

Seeing the Yankees and the Sox on the field, together, it’s impossible not to detect how evenly matched they are. And yet: It’s also increasingly possible to see how the Yankees may well be the better of the two teams offensively.

The Sox have the two most explosive players, no doubt — Adrian Gonzalez and Jacoby Ellsbury, though Ellsbury misfired on a chance to bulk up his MVP candidacy by twice coming up empty with the bases loaded. But the Yankees, 1 through 9, are relentless, and that will only increase once Alex Rodriguez returns to the clean-up hole.

It’s true that the only race the Red Sox won this weekend is first to 70 wins in the American League, joining the Phillies in that rarefied airspace in all of MLB. And there are no rings awarded for first-to-70, no pennants raised, no parades scheduled. It is indeed only a benchmark.

But as benchmarks go, it was a good one. For both teams. Nothing was solved here this weekend, nothing decided. But appetites were whetted, interest piqued. And October can’t get here fast enough.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com