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.