Perhaps, but relevancy is increasing by the day, especially when the Sox lose in the manner they did last night, coughing up a two-run lead in an 8-4 loss in which they tied a season high by committing four errors.
That included two errors on the same play during New York's four-run sixth inning, turning a 4-3 Sox deficit into an 8-3 game. One of those miscues was Edgar Renteria's 25th; no player in baseball has more.
The Sox, who pulled into Yankee Stadium up by four games, now lead the division by three, and face the prospects of leaving for Toronto tomorrow night ahead by only a game with 20 to play.
Few Sox would contextualize the importance of one night, during which it took 3 hours 40 minutes to play a nine-inning game before 55,024 who didn't seem to mind the lengthy evening. But, at least one, David Wells, ventured to call today a big game.
''Today would be big to pick us up," said Wells, a loser for only the third time in his last 20 starts. Wells went on to cite the danger of replicating the club's last road trip, a 4-6 journey through Detroit, Anaheim, and Kansas City, on which ''we got out butts whipped."
''You don't want to fall into that," he added.
Wells was blunt because the Sox made it too easy for New York last night.
Fifty-three days had passed without these teams meeting. The last time they did, July 17 at Fenway, Mark Bellhorn sprained his left thumb fielding a Jason Giambi grounder (they would surface again on the same field as teammates). The Sox' loss that night lowered them to 50-41, while the Yankees improved to 49-41.
In the nearly eight weeks without seeing each other, the Sox got better, on paper and on the field, going 32-16, the Yankees 29-20.
The Sox in that time added Tony Graffanino, Gabe Kapler, and Jonathan Papelbon, among others, while the Yankees made myriad additions and deletions. The notable newcomers included two new arms in the rotation (Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small), and one in the bullpen (Alan Embree). And there were others, not so much new as renewed (Giambi in that span played in 46 games, hitting 16 home runs and knocking in 38 runs).
