Where to start with the events of last night? Had the game been played 'neath the cover of October skies, it would already have taken its rightful place alongside the Bucky Dent Game and the Aaron Boone Game.
It had to be the most excruciating defeat of this suddenly-southbound season. The Red Sox blew a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the seventh. New York tied the game when Tony Clark hit a two-out, bases-loaded, scorching grounder to first base. Some, including Sox manager Terry "I Love These Guys" Francona, claim that the baseball actually tore through the webbing of David Ortiz's glove. Ortiz wasn't sure, but Sox trainer/glove doctor Jim Rowe punctured the magic bullet theory, reporting that the glove was not torn. No doubt the odd play will become part of Boston baseball folklore, like Luis Aparicio falling down rounding third base in 1972. In any event, Ortiz's error enabled the Yankees to tie the game and increased the Sox' major league-leading unearned run total to 60. In the next inning, Nomar Garciaparra, the loneliest athlete in the world, made a throwing error, helping the Yankees win it with two more runs. Mariano Rivera struck out the side in the Boston ninth. The whole thing was downright Gradylike.
The Stonefingers Sox are 7 1/2 games behind the hated Yankees. Eight games in the loss column. And now that July is here, the Sox officially just played two months of sub-.500 baseball (27-28 in May and June).
Not a single member of the Red Sox baseball operation is in New York this week, which is regrettable. Somebody needs to shake things up and it's not going to be Francona. Mr. Hakuna Matata would be on the firing line if he weren't in the first half of the first year of his three-year deal. He's the closest thing we've seen to M.L. Carr since Pete Carroll. He won't bunt and when he does bunt, his players can't execute. He hasn't been timely with his late-game substitutions (why wasn't David McCarty on the field in the seventh after Ortiz made the final out of the top of the inning?) and discipline is a joke.
