Bambino's Curse

I'm OK. You're OK.

``Maybe he's not throwing as hard as he was a year or so ago, but he did a good job of pitching,'' said Little. ``He pitched a heckuva game. It was fun.''

Sucks to lose, but I'm more and more hopeful regarding Martinez. Of course, I've had fairly low expectations. I did not expect him to recover from the shoulder injury to begin with. That he's showing us what he is, despite his not being "the Pedro we used to know," I feel really good.

There are going to be some bad times ahead. Let's face it. The Yankees will be in first place at some point, sooner or later. Looking up at the Yankees may be temporary or it may be 'til the bitter end. Whatever. This team can still persevere.

Hey, we all know "there's no crying in baseball," but there sure is a lot of it going on in PGA golf. Boo hoo hoo, "I would be a winner if it wasn't for that meddling Tiger." Whaaa whaaaaaaa whaaaa … Toughen up for chrisakes.

Rival? Atlanta, naturally

"The whole schedule's a joke. It doesn't create fairness for anyone. What could happen is it comes down to the wire and it's down to two teams, and one game here or there is the determining factor … It's not fair." — Nomar Garciaparra on the selection of the Atlanta Braves as the Red Sox natural rival in interleague play.

Nomar's got a point, no?

The only positive thing for me regarding having Atlanta as the natural rival is, living out of the range of NESN et al, I get to watch the entire series on TBS. But, honestly, I'd rather the Red Sox didn't get stuck with playing the perennial NL playoff contender Braves every year.

Ready to see the pitchers swing the wood?

In five years of interleague play, Red Sox pitchers are a cool 5-for-86 (.058). Last season, they went 2-for-22 with three successful sacrifice bunts. The only hits were a pair of singles -- one by Hideo Nomo, the other by Tim Wakefield. Both came against Montreal.

The numbers bear it out. When American League teams travel to National League ballparks and pitchers hit, it's as if they're giving away an out every time the ninth spot comes through the order (Curran, ProJo).

Fingers crossed … (and speaking of fingers …)

Insisting that the world be turnin' our way*

Enough already.

… [The Red Sox] completed a disappointing six-game homestand and headed for the place they love best - the road.

''We're all excited about going back out on the road and winning,'' said Fossum.

Stop talking about how everything is so wonderful on the road. That's just asking for smackdown from the Fates, if you ask me. Never a good thing to do as we've learned over and over. I'm not saying I prefer doom and gloom, let's just go easy on the hubris.

Meanwhile, if you're in the New England area this would be a good weekend to travel to McCoy and check in on the PawSox.

OOPS, I forgot …

In my gushing yesterday about the good times with a good team, I forgot all about the one little thing standing in the way of the Red Sox moving along the path toward becoming a great team:

The left-handed Fossum's problems are even more pronounced against left-handed hitters, who are batting .375 against him. The only other lefty in the bullpen is Darren Oliver, who forfeited his spot in the rotation when he had difficulty with lefties and righties.

And therein lies the real problem in the Red Sox' bullpen. Two relievers -- Willie Banks and Haney -- are journeymen who spent time in the minor leagues this season. Toss in Oliver, whom the pitching-starved Texas Rangers couldn't wait to dump, and it's obvious that there's a real lack of major-league arms in the Boston bullpen (McAdam, ProJo).

Looks like we'll be riding this one out all season, as the Sox' don't have much too offer other clubs who might be willing to unload a veteran reliever in exchange for young prospects.

If it's not one thing, it's another.

Stock up on your Xanax boys and girls. We ain't seen the end of nights like last night.

You like this team or what?

Lowe does it. You had to figure he would, though, fate has reminded us Red Sox fans there is never a sure thing in baseball.

``There was no sense of panic,'' catcher Jason Varitek said. ``We know we didn't swing the bats well against Arizona and we didn't pitch as well as we needed to. That's why we lost. It wasn't because we're a bad team.''

This is the same V-Tek who had a bunt single Sunday and stole a base last night. Oh, yeah, and 3 other Sox stole bases last night.

Can you believe it?

And can you believe Manny Ramirez may be back as early as this weekend?

Good times. Good times. Good team.

Sweep it under the rug

Well, so far this season the Red Sox have passed the first West Coast test, passed the early Yankee test, now we'll see how they do with this test: recovering from being swept at home and looking very ordinary against the World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks.

For the positive spin, the Diamondbacks played superbly:

"Probably for three games in a row, that's our best streak," Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly said. "Every aspect of the game. We had a couple of misplays defensively. I attribute some of that to the unfamiliarity with the park. But against that lineup we pitched about as well as we could pitch. We made the plays we were supposed to make. Our pitching, starting and bullpen both, were outstanding in this series. And we had some great at-bats" (Bauman, MLB.com).

And this sums up the negative spin perfectly:

``We're 20 games over .500,'' Little said. ``We still like playing baseball. We just ran up against a good ballclub and they played better than we did. We'll be OK.''

Of course, many a veteran Red Sox fan will tell you that being ``OK'' is not what it's all about. The Red Sox have been ``OK'' for most of the last 35 years, yet have proved, time and again, that ``OK'' doesn't win the World Series (Buckley, The Boston Herald).

Let's see what the Red Sox are made of as they try to stop skid tonight against the Rockies. It's difficult to be anything but agnostic at this point.

A Schilling for your thoughts

''I don't even know if I'm going to make it for the second half'' — Pedro Martinez

What, me worry?