Brian Daubach

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- It's going on nine years, and every time baseball players vote on whether to pardon former replacement players and allow them into the union, the result is the same. Just last winter, at their annual meeting at Pebble Beach, the players voted on whether to forgive and forget, and like all the other votes, the proposal was defeated. So players such as Brian Daubach and Kevin Millar of the Red Sox remain major leaguers who are not subjects of Donald Fehr's empire.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Terry Francona managed in Philadelphia so he knows the drill. He knows it only takes a couple of losses and some questionable non-moves with his starting pitching to trigger a barrage of criticism in Red Sox Nation. "I kept hearing [ESPN baseball analyst] Jeff Brantley just [expletive] hammering me," the Sox skipper noted as he discussed his delay in removing Derek Lowe from Monday's butt-kicking against Baltimore at Fenway. That was only the beginning. Some nocturnal Sox fans were baying at the moon late Tuesday when Francona went one batter too many with Bronson Arroyo in a...

CLEVELAND -- When Curt Schilling, the hitchhiker, tosses his equipment bag into the F-150 truck in the Ford commercial and confides that he's bound for Boston to break an old curse, it almost seems as if he could write the rest of the story himself. If only it were that easy. Schilling played his role smartly last night, ceding the Indians only two runs over seven innings to give the Sox every opportunity to avoid opening May with a fourth straight loss for the first time in 16 years.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Sonny McLean's, the Santa Monica pub favored by Red Sox chairman Tom Werner when he's home on the Left Coast and needs a fix of the Nation, sent seven busloads of fans down the I-5 freeway to Angel Park here for last night's playoff preview, if such a thing is possible in June. Suffice to say, the Sox gave them lots to talk about on what turned into a long ride home, as the Angels came back from a 4-1 deficit to win, 7-6, the Sox deflating like the giant plastic baseball Ellis Burks punctured after it drifted into the dugout from the stands.

TORONTO -- Ravaged in May by every affliction, it seemed, but plague and pestilence, the Red Sox last night badly needed a happy ending. Something to soothe the ache of too many cases of the flu, too many late-night flights, too many games without Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon in the lineup, and too many losses. They needed something as therapeutic as the events that unfolded just when their plight grew bleakest. Moments after the Sox squandered a 3-0 lead against the Blue Jays and appeared destined to tailspin toward another dispiriting loss, they struck for six runs in the eighth inning to surge to a 9-3 victory before...

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Theo Epstein was across the continent toiling for the San Diego Padres in 2001 when Brian Daubach and his running buddy, Trot Nixon, emerged as leaders of the original Red Sox dirt dogs, as then-Toronto reliever Paul Quantrill dubbed a gritty crew of overachievers. By the winter of 2002, Epstein was phoning Daubach as the Sox general manager to tell the first baseman his days in Boston were over. Daubach received the call while he was Christmas shopping with his fiancee, whom he later married, and he was crushed.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Terry Francona managed in Philadelphia so he knows the drill. He knows it only takes a couple of losses and some questionable non-moves with his starting pitching to trigger a barrage of criticism in Red Sox Nation. "I kept hearing [ESPN baseball analyst] Jeff Brantley just [expletive] hammering me," the Sox skipper noted as he discussed his delay in removing Derek Lowe from Monday's butt-kicking against Baltimore at Fenway. That was only the beginning. Some nocturnal Sox fans were baying at the moon late Tuesday when Francona went one batter too many with Bronson Arroyo...

Just when it looked like the Red Sox bullpen -- billed as one of baseball's best entering the season -- had overcome the ravages of last week's 13-inning nightmare in Baltimore, a powerful aftershock struck Sunday, all but knocking the beleaguered relief corps to its knees. "It's been a long week and a half," said closer Keith Foulke, who already has pitched more pressure-packed innings (5 2/3) than the five he worked last year for the A's in the Division Series against the Sox. "It feels like Opening Day was a month ago. " Foulke said he already felt the toll, and he was...

Red Sox fans gave the fellas a mulligan on this one. As the game degenerated in the late innings, the happy thousands stuck around and cheered when 34-year-old David McCarty made his big league pitching debut. Though the game was out of reach, there was more delight when old friend Brian Daubach came up with two outs in the ninth. There were hardly any boos for Mike Timlin, who imploded in the eighth, or for manager Terry Francona, who saw his club of great expectations drop a 10-5 decision to the Toronto Blue Jays in the 93d Fenway Park opener.

He is 25 years old with a spinning, vexing sidearm delivery that, when right, tends to flummox even the best major league hitters. When he's on, he throws 94 miles per hour, and he throws strikes. So why, after only three cracks as Boston's fifth starter, was pitcher Byung Hyun Kim banished to Pawtucket? And why was hardly anyone in the Red Sox clubhouse unhappy about it? You had to wonder why the team demoted Kim so quickly after Monday night's 10-6 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

It was just one of those days for the Red Sox yesterday in a 5-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners at Fenway Park. One of those days on which David Ortiz hit a ground-rule double to right-center in the fifth inning that, had it stayed in play, would have driven in the tying run. One of those days when Tim Wakefield "scuffled" in the second and third innings, giving up all five runs, before settling down. One of those rare days when the embattled Seattle bullpen, which has blown eight saves, lined up perfectly, with sub- mariner Mike Myers, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, and Eddie Guardado shutting down a Sox lineup that...

TORONTO -- Ravaged in May by every affliction, it seemed, but plague and pestilence, the Red Sox last night badly needed a happy ending. Something to soothe the ache of too many cases of the flu, too many late-night flights, too many games without Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon in the lineup, and too many losses. They needed something as therapeutic as the events that unfolded just when their plight grew bleakest. Moments after the Sox squandered a 3-0 lead against the Blue Jays and appeared destined to tailspin toward another dispiriting loss, they struck for six runs in the eighth inning to surge to a 9-3...

He is 25 years old with a spinning, vexing sidearm delivery that, when right, tends to flummox even the best major league hitters. When he's on, he throws 94 miles per hour, and he throws strikes. So why, after only three cracks as Boston's fifth starter, was pitcher Byung Hyun Kim banished to Pawtucket? And why was hardly anyone in the Red Sox clubhouse unhappy about it? You had to wonder why the team demoted Kim so quickly after Monday night's 10-6 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

There was no good reason to leave early last night at Fenway Park. The weather was great, the game was played at a relatively brisk pace, Super Bowl coach Bill Belichick was in the house, and so was the Cleveland Indians' bullpen, for whom no lead is too big to blow. Whether the 35,371 on hand last night were aware of how poorly the Tribe pen has performed this season is debatable, though they need only have reviewed what happened Tuesday night to know that sticking around was advisable.

When you manage the Red Sox, most of the time you have a dartboard on your back. You're picked apart, analyzed, dissected. And then sometimes the things you do work out and you have a big hand in your team winning a game. Such was Terry Francona's night. Oh sure, the players play. It was pinch hitter David McCarty's 200-foot triple to right in the eighth that allowed the go-ahead runs to score in Boston's 5-3 triumph over the Cleveland Indians. It was Bill Mueller's key double earlier in the inning that scored pinch runner Cesar Crespo to tie it. It was Pedro Martinez, who fanned 11 in seven strong...

CLEVELAND -- When Curt Schilling, the hitchhiker, tosses his equipment bag into the F-150 truck in the Ford commercial and confides that he's bound for Boston to break an old curse, it almost seems as if he could write the rest of the story himself. If only it were that easy. Schilling played his role smartly last night, ceding the Indians only two runs over seven innings to give the Sox every opportunity to avoid opening May with a fourth straight loss for the first time in 16 years.

It was just one of those days for the Red Sox yesterday in a 5-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners at Fenway Park. One of those days on which David Ortiz hit a ground-rule double to right-center in the fifth inning that, had it stayed in play, would have driven in the tying run. One of those days when Tim Wakefield "scuffled" in the second and third innings, giving up all five runs, before settling down. One of those rare days when the embattled Seattle bullpen, which has blown eight saves, lined up perfectly, with sub- mariner Mike Myers, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, and Eddie Guardado shutting down a Sox lineup that...

When you manage the Red Sox, most of the time you have a dartboard on your back. You're picked apart, analyzed, dissected. And then sometimes the things you do work out and you have a big hand in your team winning a game. Such was Terry Francona's night. Oh sure, the players play. It was pinch hitter David McCarty's 200-foot triple to right in the eighth that allowed the go-ahead runs to score in Boston's 5-3 triumph over the Cleveland Indians. It was Bill Mueller's key double earlier in the inning that scored pinch runner Cesar Crespo to tie it. It was Pedro Martinez, who fanned 11 in seven strong...

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The schedule game we all play at the beginning of the season has thrown us for a loop. When we saw this three-game series in Texas, one word came to mind: Sweep. We were right. Just had the wrong team. The pesky young Rangers, who now own the best record in the majors (16-9), lived up to the popular de facto state motto: Don't Mess With Texas. The Rangers, buoyed by R.A. Dickey allowing only four hits in 8 2/3 innings in last night's 4-1 victory, also hit well and played good defense.

Just when it looked like the Red Sox bullpen -- billed as one of baseball's best entering the season -- had overcome the ravages of last week's 13-inning nightmare in Baltimore, a powerful aftershock struck Sunday, all but knocking the beleaguered relief corps to its knees. "It's been a long week and a half," said closer Keith Foulke, who already has pitched more pressure-packed innings (5 2/3) than the five he worked last year for the A's in the Division Series against the Sox. "It feels like Opening Day was a month ago. " Foulke said he already felt the toll, and he was far from alone after...