It should not come as a major news bulletin to report that the Red Sox simply cannot continue to live this way.
Or can they?
"Tito [i.e. manager Terry Francona] says they won't be putting an instructional video on our play," said general manager Theo Epstein. "But if they did, it would be entitled `How To Play Winning Baseball Making Four Errors A Night.' "
In their current serendipitous state, the Red Sox seem to be able to play through anything and everything. They made four truly ugly errors in Game 1, but they were able to survive and stagger home with an 11-9 victory. The obvious assumption was that they couldn't play another game like it if they were going to defeat a team as potent as the St. Louis Cardinals.
Well, they did. And they won again.
Now in Game 1, two of the errors were made by Manny Ramirez. That, of course, is part of the full Manny package. But three of last night's errors were made by Bill Mueller. Three! This was a major shock. Bill Mueller might be the Mr. Reliable of the team. He may not be the most talented guy, but he is perhaps the most fundamentally sound player in that room. But here he was, getting in the way of Jason Varitek on a second inning Jim Edmonds foul pop and later mishandling two ground balls, one of which accounted for the only run off Curt Schilling, and the other prolonging an inning that should have had Schilling chillin' in the dugout about five or six minutes earlier than he actually arrived.
The fourth error was another stunner, because it was a routine play. After Mueller failed to come up with Scott Rolen's two-out ground ball in the sixth, Mark Bellhorn failed to come up with an Edmonds roller that barely called for the use of a glove. So here was poor Curt, four outs deep into the inning, trying to get out of the inning. This, after being touched up for an unearned run in the fourth.
"But our pitching is why we can live with this until we get it straightened out," suggested Kevin Millar. "Curt picked us up."
Schilling survived this two-on, two-out dustup by retiring Reggie Sanders on a grounder to Mueller, who caught this one and out-raced Rolen to the bag.
