Sports Redux: Good Times Never Seemed So Bad

Take us to DEFCON 3.

The Red Sox were pasted at Fenway last night. Somehow (we can't explain it), the game seemed closer than the 12-2 final score indicated, but you can't really find a silver lining in a cloud this dark. Curt Schilling and the bullpen kept giving up big hits, and the Red Sox kept not getting big hits, which has become a troubling leitmotif all month long. Two runs a game generally won't cut it, guys!

Schill never found anything remotely like the rhythm he had in the near-no-hitter last week in Oakland. He settled down, though, and had the team down only 3-2 going into the fifth. That's when things got ugly, though, as Brad Hawpe blasted a 3-run shot into right field. The Rockies continued the pummeling off Javier Lopez and Joel Pineiro.

We'd like to take a moment for a little editorial aside here, as the NESN broadcast came back in the middle of the 8th (after the Rockies took the 12-2 lead), and we heard the Fenway crowd still boisterously singing along to "Sweet Caroline". Now, we know nobody should be at the point of tying a noose yet, but how can anyone in good conscience yell that they feel "So good! So good!" on the short end of a 10-run lead? Does anyone have any sense of context anymore? We're not saying tickets should be automatically revoked, but there oughtta be some Fan Kangaroo Court where people can be brought in for questioning in these sort of matters.

So now the lead is down to an uncomfortable 8 1/2. The Yankees won their eighth straight, fish-gutting an Arizona team that might want a word with the schedule-makers after this week. Alex Rodriguez continues hitting like a man trying to keep his name in the good part of the papers, and Hideki Matsui's offense has finally joined the team. We think DEFCON 3 sounds about right at this moment.

Josh Beckett puts his 9-0 record on the line tonight against 5-5 Jeff Francis in the rubber game. Then the Giants come to town, which is great, because what this struggling club needs right now is a media circus. We can only wait to see what Dan Shaughnessy's been cooking up this week.

Speaking of Shaughnessy, Bruce Allen at Boston Sports Media Watch notes that yesterday's profile of Jonathan Papelbon's knuckletap with Officer Billy Dunn came over a month after Dan mused in one of his "eat up innings" columns that he'd like to know that guy's story. Luckily, the Globe found a reporter willing to actually trudge down to the field and ask people.

The Red Sox are trying to split the ticket for the All-Star Game. With David Ortiz comfortable leading the fan voting at 1B (despite our endorsement of Youkilis), the Sox are petitioning the lords of baseball to switch their 1B candidate to Youk in the players' ballot.

Wanted poster made at GlassGiant.com, which we appreciate but won't link to because we don't want to inflict 1 million popups on you.