When Lester spoke to the media after his start in Oakland he told everybody that his pitches were good, but he was just unlucky. Considering that BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was not his friend that day, I believed him. I mean, bloop hits are just unlucky, right? Well, here’s a news flash for him, when you constantly fall behind batters, you’re going to get hit…hard. Do not look up to Dice-K. Just because he’s missing from the rotation doesn’t mean that you can replicate his WHIP of 3 but still give up only 1 run BS. Instead you end up putting your team in an early five run hole. Lucky for Lester, BABIP wasn’t Cleveland’s friend tonight either. The Sox squeaked out three runs in the 8th to tie the game by using 47-hop grounders as base hits.

Going into extra innings, I know all Sox fans have been waiting for a certain clutch Red Sox’s coming out party for this season. Wouldn’t it be appropriate for his first home run of the season to go to deep center in the top of the 10th with 2-down and nobody on? Yeah, I wish it was Papi too, but who can complain about Jonathan VAAAAn Every making his first major league home run to be a memorable one? Plus, he made some catches in right field that probably made JD limp just from watching them, and did it all against the team that kept him in AAA for seven years. Now that’s CLUTCH. (Credit to Castiglione for calling it: “This would be a good time for Van Every’s first major league home run…”.) Right now the Sox are both lucky and good. After all, when Javier Lopez throws a scoreless inning, you’ve got to be lucky.

Well, that was a crappy way to end an 11 game winning streak. Anybody notice a coincidence that as soon as Julio Lugo rejoined the lineup, the Sox sucked again? I’ve heard that I can’t blame everything on Julio, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.

First, Julio gets placed in the lineup. Everyone except Big Papi groans. As long as Lugo’s in the lineup, nobody will worry about Papi.

Lugo then proceeds to drop a double-play ball. Instead of the Sox maintaining a 7-3 lead, his error opens the door for a four run inning for the Indians. Suddenly we’re tied at 7.

In the 8th, Lugo leaves the game for Nick Green. Green strikes out swinging on 3 pitches with the go-ahead run at third and one down in the top of the 9th. For those of you who want to put this on Green, forget it, have you ever tried hitting a 99mph fastball after sitting on the bench all game? I blame Lugo.

And for the clincher, the 9th inning debacle. I bet you’re wondering, how on earth can you put this on Julio. Well, did you see that error by Lopez, who does that remind you of? Clearly Lopez has been taking PFP with the one guy on the team who can’t catch. You bet I’m blaming that on Lugo.

So you see, everything is Julio Lugo’s fault. EVERYTHING.

Timmeh was magnificent yet again. If the Sox weren’t facing the reigning Cy-Young winner, I’m sure everybody would be talking about Wake’s third consecutive start of at least 7 innings, where he allowed no more than a two runs. But since both starters put up goose eggs through the seventh, we get to focus on Jason Bay instead.

On Friday, Bay destroys a 92mph cutter from Mariano Rivera with two down in the 9th. So what does he do for an encore? He makes a 99mph Kerry Wood fastball look like a 3-0 67mph one from Timmeh and deposits it into the left-center field stands with one out in the 9th. Kim tried to nickname Bay “Mogli.” Due to the fact that it needed seven degrees of separation to make sense, it never stuck. But since he seems to be making a habit of killing the pitchers who only come out late at night, I present a new nickname for him: the Vampire Killer. Also it only seems appropriate that his first victim would be the Fruitbat.

THE RED SOX TEAM, ALL DRESSED IN TUXEDOS, IS POSED “TEAM PICTURE” STYLE ON THE INFIELD OF FENWAY PARK

TEAM: (in unison) Hello. Do you know us?

VARITEK: We’re a Major League Baseball team.

WAKEFIELD: That’s why we carry the American Express card.

PAPELBON: Even if we start off the season 2-6, it’s cool. You know, it keeps us from getting shut out at our favorite hotels and restaurant-type places.

LOWELL: So if you’re looking for some Big-League clout, apply for that little green home-run hitter.

PAPI: Look what it’s done for US. I still haven’t hit a home run, BUT… [SNAPS]

TITO: After a 10 game winning streak including a three game sweep of the MFY, we’re contenders now.

DRESSED IN A TUXEDO, TACOBY SLIDES INTO HOME PLATE AND HOLDS UP A GREEN CREDIT CARD

TACOBY: The American Express card: Don’t steal home without it.

(Script adapted from Major League, by David S Ward.)

Another day, another gut wrenching loss for the MFY against the Sox. The game may have lasted “only” four hours and 21 minutes, but it certainly felt like they played three games at Fenway today. You thought we got a break this year by only playing the MFY 18 times this season instead of 19. Nope, with the three today, instead we get 20!

In the first game, which lasted three and a half innings, Robinson Cano abused Beckett and Burnett dominated the Sox. All of the momentum from last night’s victory was gone. The Sox were losing 6-0 and Robinson Cano would have to fight Burnett for the MVP trophy of this strange regular season game that lasted only 3.5 innings and gives out an MVP award.

In the second game, which lasted an inning and a half, everything changed. Not only were the Sox scoring, but in bunches from some strange sources. An Ellsbury home run was strange to tie the game, but a first-pitch grand slam from the left side from Varitek? That’s just fantasy land. Suddenly the Sox were up 8-6.

And then we had the third and final game. If you were watching this game, I hope you didn’t blink. You might have missed some runs, or 12. This 3.5 inning game almost could have been confused with a basketball game with the three lead changes and one tie. We can’t exactly thank Tito being Grady for the victory (why would you bring out Beckett after 5 innings of 6 run ball? WHY!?), or the bullpen, or the defense (Pedroia’s Bucknering a ball gave the MFY a 10-9 lead and my vocal chords a workout), but someone we can all thank is Mikey Lowell. We should have known he had something special in him when Tim McCarver believed that intentionally walking Jason Bay to get to Lowell was a good move for the MFY. But somehow Mikey kept a inside fastball just fair and into the front row of the Monster seats to give the Sox the lead back. And since the bullpen clearly was having trouble holding any small lead, he broke the game open with a three-run double after the MFY intentionally walked Youks. Somehow Paps held a 5-run lead in the ninth.

Even though it had all the stress of three games, sadly it only counts as a single win in the standings. But hey, I guess I’ll take “only” one win when it’s the biggest non-playoff comeback the Sox have had over the MFY since 1968.

It’s usually a frustrating loss when 17 baserunners in eight and two-thirds innings (none of which went 1-2-3) only provides two runs. When it’s the first game of the season vs the MFY, a performance like that makes Red Sox Nation want to put its collective fist through a wall. Hell, even Tito gave up on this game when he brought in Javy Lopez, who right now looks like a lefty version of his catching counterpart on the mound, in the 9th and a 4-2 deficit. Maybe we should have realized something was brewing when Lopez got himself into and out of a bases-loaded, no out situation without giving up a run.

So when Jason Bay tied up the game with a shot just above the yellow “home run” line in left-center into the Monster seats with two down in the ninth, down by 2, runner at second and Mariano Rivera pitching, at first I was ecstatic. And then my mind shot back to last year when Bay had his introduction to Fenway home-run with a go-ahead shot in the 8th to give the Sox the lead over Tampa Bay, and what would have been a half-game lead in the division as well. Paps blew the save and suddenly people forgot about Bay’s late-inning heroics. So before I could become too excited for Jason I started thinking, “please don’t let the rest of the team screw this up for him again.”

This time the bullpen held. It might have swayed a bit, but it held. So to reward them, and especially our favorite Canadian (I’m sorry Kottaras), Youk gave all of Fenway a big Shabat Shalom shot into the Monster. He even brought wine and challah to home plate for the celebration greeting party.

Anybody else need a day of rest after that game?

It’s always nice to see the Orioles. When our offense needs a pick-me-up, Jeremy Guthrie and Mark Hendrickson start. If the starters need some confidence, Masty and Lester combine for 12.1 innings and a single run allowed. Plus, what other major league teams decides to put the rejects from the 7th grade baseball team out on the field at Fenway? Even I could have looked better while missing that baseball than Markakis did (and fly balls have literally bounced off my head before). A sunny Patriots day, Sweet Caroline at 10am, and after a 3-6 start the Sox now sit a game over even. What a difference a week makes.

It took 12 games, but this team is finally starting to look more like the team that went to the ALCS last year instead of the one that started the season 2-6. Problem is, that’s a good thing and a bad thing. Jon Lester finally looked like an ace pitcher deserving of a large extension. He went seven shutout innings, striking out nine and generally made the Orioles look terrible. The flipside is that we may just have to accept the fact that Josh Beckett will never regain his 2007 form. That he’s never going to have the ability to will himself to a win. Because the Josh Beckett of 2007 would never have let the Orioles turn a 6-0 lead into a tight ballgame. Of course, in 2007 I often felt like handing Beckett a 2-0 lead was putting a game out of reach, so it’s all about perception.

Oh, and even though Saito gave up a run today, he did still get the save. So that’s 21.1 innings pitched, earning 3 saves while giving up only 2 runs for the pen. For a little comparison, the MFY pen pitched 7.2 innings yesterday and allowed only 14 runs.

And your daily PSA: don’t forget that tomorrow’s Patriots’ Day game starts at 11 Eastern, 8 Pacific and for those of you in Hawaii, make sure to get that wake-up call for a 5AM.

When I was younger my dad and I would go back and forth when a game would get out of hand. One person would say “give me an O” and the other would respond with “give me an V” back and forth until we spelled “over” and then we’d change the channel. Considering the state of our offense recently, when Penny gave up the second run, give me an O. And when he walked in the second run of the inning, give me a V. As the ball sailed over the center field wall for a grand slam to Markakis, give me an E.

So, down 7-0, give me a…hey, did Bay just hit a 2-run jack? Did Tacoby just cut the deficit to three? When Tek came up with the bases loaded I still contemplated giving this game the R, but miraculously his intangibles turned a routine ground out to first into a run-scoring error. And then before you could say 0-and-freaking-2, Nick Green took a pitch to dead center to tie the game up at eight. The Sox soon after took the lead and I had to happily eat the O, V and E.

The offense obviously kicked it into high gear, but the bullpen needs to get a lot of the credit. The past two games they’ve pitched in, they’ve thrown 16.2 innings and allowed a single run. If we use the Joe Morgan school of statistics, it’s only a 1-1 record, but that’s an ERA of 0.55! They covered up for the 4IP and 13 runs allowed from the starters in those two games. The pen is going to take a lot of crap during this season when they will inevitably give up a game or two, so let’s make sure to give them credit for when they clean up after the starting rotation’s messes.

You’re probably all wondering how Mr. Shaky Wakey himself could be five outs from a no-hitter; how he could go the first seven innings and only have made 67 pitches (50 of them for strikes!!!), not to mention how he could do all of this with the wind howling out to right field. I’ve got an answer for why he pitched so well, and trust me, it’s indisputable.

One, I didn’t attend this game. Twice in the past three season the Sox have come to Oakland and had mid-week getaway day games. I’ve gone to almost every Sox game in Oakland, but I say almost because I’ve missed two: Curt’s almost no-hitter, and Wake’s almost no-hitter. Either they really like the daylight, or, I’m supposed to stay far away from the Sox.

Second, Timothy “black lung” Wakefield has learned how to stretch. Inconceivable, but it’s true. As I was waiting for the elevator on Tuesday Wake was stretching in the door to the weight room. It looked painful, not only because a good stretch often does look painful but also because he looked like he had the flexibility of a piece of granite. I must have had a confused look on my face because he said to me “when you get to my age, you’ve got to stretch.” At age 42 he was young, but now, he realizes that he’s getting old and needed to start stretching.

So Timmy, my suggestion to you is to stretch away! If we’re lucky, this stretching thing will carry Wakefield through 29 more wins, just enough to pass Cy Young and Roger Clemens on the all-time Sox victories list.