Stephen King - Faithful

How bad is it right now in what sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy has dubbed Red Sox Nation? I peeped in at NESN’s SportsDesk this morning (I felt I could do this without too much fear of damaging my fragile sports superego because the Sox were idle yesterday) and was horrified to hear Sox-approved commentator Mike Perlow bandying Red Sox–Marlins trade rumors concerning Nomar Garciaparra and Derek Lowe. Of course there will be trade gossip as long as there’s pro baseball, but because NESN is a quasi-official arm of the Red Sox organization, one is tempted to sense palsied fingers (perhaps on the hand of Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein) creeping toward that red button marked PANIC.

My decision to tune in NESN (Channel 623 on my satellite hookup) was clearly foolhardiness masquerading as bravery. The thought of Nomar in a Florida Marlins uniform is dismaying, almost nauseating. After no more than five minutes, I made haste to Soapnet and All My Children, where Erica is currently enduring the world’s longest alcohol intervention,Babe is in the hospital recovering from something her boyfriend JR (with a nickname like that you know he’s a rat) put in her drink, and no one, so far as I can tell, is in danger of getting traded to General Hospital . Right now that makes it a safer, comfier world.

Wake versus Barry Zito doesn’t sound fair, but in the second, Billy Mueller launches a three-run Monster shot. Zito loads the bases in the fourth and walks in two runs, then, after a smoked liner to third by Nomar, Millar doubles down the left-field line, scoring two more. It’s 7–0 and Zito’s thrown over 100 pitches. A’s reliever Justin Lehr gives up four more in the fifth, and it’s a laugher.

SK:Maybe the worst part of the current Red Sox woes is that there’s this weary-ass old paper-delivery dude up here who drops off the Globe and the New York Times to the general store. He’s worse about the Red Sox than Angry Bill in Still, We Believe . “Those damn Red Sox! ” he says one day. And this morning it’s “That damn Nomah! ” And every day it’s “I been chasin’ those bums my whole life! ” You know, like he’s the only fucking sailor on the Pequod . Well, it’s 11–0 Red Sox tonight in the sixth, and unless things go horribly wrong—and after that last game in Atlanta, I guess anything is possible—I can face the weary-ass old paper dude tomorrow with equaminity (sic). The problem is, it’s only one game . People are asking me about our chances in the wild card already . I mean, it’s come to that. I’m telling them “Hold the phone, there’s still a division race going on here.” But we’ve got to get the old Magic Streak going, like with the formerly hapless D-Rays.

Could this be the magical night it starts to happen???!!!?

Hold de fone! And git yo FREEK on!!!

SO:Naysayers everywhere. It’s too easy. You could damn the chances of every team in the majors and at the end of the year you’d be 29–1. Haven’t the Pats taught him anything? Dare to believe.

Speaking of streaks, d’ja see my Bucs reeled off ten straight before losing to the Marlins last night? So it can happen to anybody.

Tonight Mark Belllhorn takes Mark Redman deep in the first for a 1–0 lead. Like Zito, Redman struggles. In the second he gives up a solo shot to Nomar, and then a batch of hits, including a big double by Tek and a two-out RBI single by Johnny, and we’re up 6–0 and on our way to a rare blowout behind Pedro.

It’s Game 83, two past the halfway mark, and for the very first time (including spring training) we field our real starting lineup: Schill and Tek; Millar, Pokey, Nomah and Bill Mueller; and Manny, Johnny and Trot, with Big David at DH.

The Schilling-Harden matchup’s in our favor, and goes that way early. Ortiz busts out of his slump with a tater over the Sox bullpen in the first, and Harden throws one at Manny’s head. In the third, Manny retaliates with a three-run opposite-field shot. By the fifth it’s 7–1 and this one looks in the bag.

But the A’s don’t roll over. Schilling’s had a twenty-five-minute wait before the sixth, and they get a pair off him. In the seventh, Timlin gives up a two-out double to Erubiel Durazo and an RBI single to Bobby Crosby, and it’s 7–4. Francoma (as the press has been calling him) leaves him in in the eighth; he gives up another run, and with one out, we have to go to Foulke. He gets Byrnes with a change-up for the second out, but on 0-2, Scott Hatteberg slaps another change off the chalk behind third and it’s a one-run game. Jermaine Dye, 0 for his last 15, skies one to left-center. Johnny goes back toward the corner where the Monster meets the center-field wall and leaps, but it’s off the Monster and bounces across center toward Trot. Hatteberg scores to tie the game. Dye’s into third standing up, and Fenway’s grumbling. Durazo chases strike three to end the inning, but our six-run lead’s history.

Foulke throws a one-two-three ninth. Octavio Dotel looks tough, getting them to the tenth, but the A’s pen has thrown too many innings this series. They go to Justin Lehr, who gave up four runs in a single inning Tuesday. He gets Tek and pinch hitter Mark Bellhorn, but Johnny singles to left. The A’s move their outfield back so nothing gets through. It’s a shrewd move, as Bill Mueller lines one to the left-center gap. Kotsay ranges over from center to cut it off in front of the scoreboard, but bobbles it. Johnny’s going to try to score anyway—at home you make them make the play. The crowd’s up and loud. The relay’s good, Crosby to catcher Damian Miller, but Johnny belly flops and slides a hand across the plate, and David Ortiz is there to call him safe and wrap him in a bear hug. The dugout rushes the field, mobbing Johnny and Bill Mueller, and it’s a sweep. We’re 46-37 and tied with Oakland for the wild card, and on Extra Innings , Eck is pumped. “Oakland’s not going to do it,” he says. “They’re showing me nothing. They’re done. Remember, I was the one that said it.”

Although things are heating up on All My Children , I was able to forego Babe’s struggles with the evil JR and JR’s equally evil (and well-heeled) daddy to relish the highlights of last night’s 8–7 Red Sox win over the A’s, completing the Sox sweep and returning Boston to a tie in the wild-card race. More important to me at this stage of the season, one three-game series away from the All-Star break, is the fact that we’ve managed to make up some ground against the Yankees, who have lost five of their last seven.

The papers made much this morning about Oakland’s surge in the late innings of last night’s game (they pounded out 17 hits, most of them against the bullpen and the key ones against Keith Foulke, who blew the save opportunity), but my take on it is more optimistic. Here’s a good Oakland team that gets blown out in the first two contests of a key series, their pitching touched up for 22 runs. Trailing by six runs in the final game, they do what good teams do: fight and scratch and claw their way back into contention, trying to come away with something . But in the bottom of the tenth, Johnny Damon singled to left, then scored when A’s center fielder Mark Kotsay bobbled Bill Mueller’s line shot. It was only the smallest of bobbles—only a step’s worth, surely—but Damon was running for all he was worth and that one extra step (and a hard slide across home) was just enough to win the game. It was a thrilling play, bringing the crowd at Fenway (and yours truly at home) to their feet, cheering. In the end, it was the good twin of the game Boston tried so hard to win against the Yankees and lost in thirteen innings.