When I was a kid, my dad used to always say:

If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?

No, wait, that was Vince Lombardi. My dad said:

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you’re rained out.

Wednesday, the Sox lose. Thursday, they win. And today, they’re rained out. Glad to see they get the full range of possibilities.

Yesterday, I listened to the XM broadcast of the game. Which meant that I had to listen to Joe Angel call the last few innings of the game. Congrats Trupe, you’re off the hook today. Angel sounded completely disconnected from the game. He often referred to things that were happening in the present, in the past tense. Some announcers are slow, but that’s just bad.

I know I get on Trupe for a number of things, but at least the guy gets excited about the game (the fact that he’s more excited about ball three than ball four notwithstanding). Angel makes strike three sound like a foul that’s out of play. He’s that dull.

I know that a big aspect of radio announcers is the bass in their voices. But I’d much rather listen to a nasal-voiced announcer who gives a good description of the game, and makes interesting points than a Joe Angel every day.

The Sox now have back-to-back day-night doubleheaders against the MFY. Please, please split the series. There’s no question that the MFY have won the AL East this season. I’d just rather that the Sox not have to watch them clinch. It’s that simple.

Could the Sox just play the Orioles this season? Right now the Sox are 1 game below .500 against everybody except the O’s.

So…who wants to start preparing the eulogy for Timlin’s career? The guy is finished. 5 ER in 0.2 IP. All in the bottom of the 9th. I know they won, but when you start the inning with a five run lead, and need to bring Javier Lopez in to face a batter with the tying run at 3rd and two outs…unacceptable.

The good news is that Craig Hansen is looking much more like the “closer of the future” than “Mike Timlin at the end of his career.” Since his return from AAA he’s gone 3.2 IP, 1 R, unearned. What’s really interesting is that his stats line up very closely to Tek’s DL-stint. Check this out:

• Hansen’s ERA with Tek: 5.31
• Hansen’s ERA without Tek: 10.61

Yeah, yeah, I know, sample size. But I still think it’s worth noting.

This is a Red Sox blog, not a Patriots blog. However, since I root for the Pats too I may make a few posts about them as well. That said…

A coupe of thoughts about the Pats-Bills game:

• The reason the Pats struggled was that Belichick wasn’t wearing the hoodie. Period.
• Was Kate Moss on the Pats O-Line in the first half? The Bills didn’t seem to have any problems getting through to Brady.
• Brady looked like Bledsoe in the first half. Please don’t scare me like that again.
• Good job of the defense to really step it up in the second half. After they stopped the Bills on 4th and 1 at the Pats 6 yard line, the Bills couldn’t get anything else going. Oh, and that saftey was a nice touch.
• I think I’m going to like the Junior Seau era. Anybody who can play that well and enjoys pumping up the crowd is fine by me.
• Belichick has balls larger than Saturn. Going for it on 4th and 2 at the Bills 20 yard line with just over 2 minutes left is gutsy. What’s more impressive is that the Pats got it done. (If you want to know the difference between Belichick and Tito, is that when Belichick makes a tough call, he does it for a reason.)

If you’re curious, my internet was down this weekend. But even if it was working I think I still would have tried to put off my comments about the Sox for a few days.

When you lose two of three to the RoyAAAls, both of the loses of the heartbreaking variety, you’re not really in a good mood to start writing about how this team makes you feel. OK, if you’re really curious I’ll tell you: like shit. In case you think I’m being overly critical, here’s a stat to change your mind. Two teams are tied for the worst records since the All Star Break (23-34): the Red Sox and the Royals. Fabulous.

On Friday I gave up when the Sox were down 8-3 in the bottom of the 8th with one out and nobody on. Not until the next morning did I learn that they scored six(!!) runs in the bottom of the eighth only to have Timlin blow it in the top of the 9th. Mike: the front office would like you to return the cards they printed for you that say “Mike Timlin, Closer.”

Saturday the Sox made another comeback to tie the score at 4-4. Then Breslow, Delcarmen and Lopez combined in the top of the 12th to give up 6 runs.

Sunday the Sox finally managed to pull out a win. I think it’s because the entire region was watching the Pats game instead. But give credit where credit is due. Julian Tavarez is slowly pitching himself into a roster spot for next season. He went 5.1 innings, and gave up 3 runs, all in the 6th inning. Who knows, maybe he can be the next D-Lowe.

As for the offense, Papi smacked a 2-run homer (#48) into the Monster to give the Sox a 5-run cushion back in the 6th inning. I’m glad somebody understands that no lead is safe with our current bullpen.

I do have a gripe to pick with Fox. Who thought it would be a good idea for the promo for next week’d Sox-MFY series to say “Jeter and the Yankees take on the hated Red Sox.” WHAT??? Who hates the Red Sox? If anything, it should read “Ortiz and the Red Sox take on the hated Yankees.” I’ll make Fox a deal: get rid of McCarver, and I’ll let this go. Please?

Apparently the Sox just don’t have the Aaron Small mojo. Last season the MFY picked up a bum who was DFAed by the Marlins and ended up going a mere 10-0. So, despite my statement that the Sox were dead, I was still hoping that Tavarez/Jenkins/Gabbard/Snyder might be able to put together some ridiculous 10-0 run to end the season. Guess not.

The big story from last night was Anibal Sanchez throwing the first no-no in 2.5 years. Yes, that’s former Sox pitching prospect Anibal Sanchez who was thrown into the Beckett/Lowell for Hanley Ramírez trade. Naturally, with the state of our pitching staff a lot of Sox fans seem to be pretty upset about this. I think you need to look at it from the opposite point of view. You always need to trade the prospect for the star. So many highly touted prospects fizzle out so quickly they barely get their names on a jersey.

So neither Sanchez nor Ramírez look to be fizzling right now, but that’s also not terrible. A really good trade works out well for both parties. Otherwise you have a Billy Beane situation, and nobody would want to talk to Theo about any possible trades.

So I say, great job Anibal. But next time you throw a no-no, you may want more than 6,000 people in the stands.

In yet another installment of scrubs pitching the games of their lives this week, we bring you Kason Gabbard (W, 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 6 K). And considering how Timlin has been pitching recently, I’ll throw him into that category (S(4), 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K). 

What’s more amazing is that Gabbard managed to do this with Trupe still calling the game. Remember back in June, when I kindly asked Trupe to stop jinxing our pitchers? He didn’t either. After Gabbard mowed down the first nine batters, Trupe opens with “He’s been perfect over the first three innings.” First batter of the forth gets a leadoff double. Then in the sixth Tupe says “Gabbard’s working on a one hit shutout.” Two of the next three batters get base hits. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it’s not malicious. In which case, he’s like a real life “Flounder” from Animal House. You guys playing cards?

This was one of those “team” wins. The defense turned three double plays behind Gabbard, one with the bases juiced. And in a strange turn of events, Coco got the winning RBI, with two outs. If you’re curious, the last time the Sox won three 1-0 games at Fenway in a season was 1978. (The last time the Sox won three or more 1-0 games in a season was 1992; two at Fenway, two on the road.)

Hell, the Sox even got good news last night. First, it was great to see Big Papi back in the lineup. I’ll take 0-3 with a walk every game if his heart stays healthy. Then we learned that PBR has “a transient subluxation event in the setting of a fatigued shoulder.” If you’re trying to figure out what that means, ask PBR: “I heard, ‘No tear,’ and that’s basically what I was worried about.” Phew.

So, a 1-0 win, Papi returning to the lineup, and no tear for PBR. It’s ok to smile a little.

The 2006 Red Sox season is over. I’m not the first to make this statement, and I won’t be the last. So you’ve got to look for the little things to make the rest of the games worthwhile.

A quick bit of background. Carlos Pena, who was picked up off waivers in August, was born in the Dominican Republic but moved to Haverhill, Mass when he was in elementary school. He grew up a huge Red Sox fan, and attended Northeastern for college.

When I was in the dugout in Oakland, he was talking with Theo and I believe the traveling secretary about getting around in Boston. The traveling secretary finally conceded to Pena, “I think you know the city a lot better than I do.”

Every kid who watches baseball dreams of hitting a walkoff home run for his hometown team. Whether it’s in the backyard, or in bed while trying to fall asleep, the announcer’s call is always the same: “There’s a deep drive to right, the fielder looks up and this ball is gone! The Red Sox win!” (OK, I was an ambitious kid; mine was always a grand slam.)

Congrats Carlos, it’s always exciting to see a kid live out his dream.

After misplaying a single into an inside the park home run, and a double into a triple, Jay Payton was booed quite a bit in Oakland. His response?

That’s kind of (lame), if you ask me. I bust my ass every day. You have a bad day and you get a bunch of dumb-ass people out there who want to boo you. So what are you going to do?

We miss you Jay.

Today was the first time in almost three years that a visiting pitcher went the distance in a 9-inning game at Fenway and won. It’s also been about the same amount of time since the Sox played a game and didn’t lose anybody to an injury. So I figure they’ve got that going for them…

Burnett pitched well, obviously, holding the Sox to one run that scored on a double-play (meaning the Sox had zero RBIs). Congrats to David Murphy on his first major league hit in his first major league at bat.

What sucks is that the Sox blew a decent outing from a pitcher they picked up off the dumpster, Kevin Jarvis. Jarvis came into the game with an 11+ ERA in AAA, errr, I mean the National League. But he managed to give the Sox 5 IP and only allowing 3ER. That’s better than the ace of the staff has done in his last two appearances.

So Kevin, welcome to the new look Red Sox. It doesn’t matter how you pitch, the lineup won’t score runs for you anyway.

Kyle Snyder pitched out of his mind tonight (7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 8 — yes eight — Ks). He deservedly got the win. Which is good, because as Sox fans we need something to go right today.

Lester’s test for lymphoma came back positive. More specifically, anaplastic large cell lymphoma, which I believe is a form on non-Hodgkin’s. If this is true, and assuming they caught it pretty early, it’s a VERY treatable form of cancer. With any luck, he may be back for Spring Training. Suddenly the Jimmy Fund joke from yesterday doesn’t seem as funny. Good luck Jon, all of Red Sox Nation is behind you.

Normally this injury would be bad enough to last a team a week, maybe a couple of days. Not for this year’s Red Sox! Within 12 hours of hearing about Lester, PBR walks off the mound in the ninth with a “burning sensation” in his right (throwing) arm. Can this get any worse? Oh yeah, Curt is going to miss his next start because of a muscle strain.

At this point I say shut the whole team down for the season. Why risk anybody else’s health? But considering the luck of this team, they’ll probably find ways to get hurt even without baseball.

So, good luck to Papi, Tek, Trot, Manny, Wily-Mo, Wakefield, Curt, PBR, Clement, A-Gon, and especially Lester to healing quickly.