The Morning After: Not what we were looking for … again

This just in: Tim Wakefield is cooked!

Ahhh, a night with Roseanne Barr. Doesn’t get much worse than that. And think, the blonde variety is about as GOOD as you can get with her. Yuck.

Look, we love the knuckler as much as anyone around. Without Wakefield, the Sox rotation wears down quicker. The bullpen struggles because it’s overworked earlier in the season. That taxes the offense with a need to produce more on a day-to-day basis. It’s a trickle down effect, we get it.

Still, it’s time to come to the realization that since back spasms first felled him three weeks ago, Wake has been a shadow of his former self. He can’t get the knuckleball to flutter the way he needs it to. When that doesn’t happen, his other stuff, i.e. slow and straight, gets absolutely crushed. See the Delmon Young homer yesterday afternoon.

Where does that leave the Sox? Next to a pretty rough redneck in the morning. Think Rosanne Barr, hopefully after lipo. After all, it may have been a loss to the Devil Rays, but hell, there was a rally in there, right?

Unfortunately, the rally wasn’t exactly a big one. And now the AL East lead isn’t exactly that big, either. Fourteen-plus games is suddenly 1 1/2. And that is as tenuous as ever. The Yankees get the D-Rays as the season closes out. The Sox? Oakland and Minnesota. Not giant killers, but not exactly patsies, either.

And what happens, God forbid, if the Sox do blow the divisional lead? It’s a huge psychological mind-screw with the Yankees, should the teams match up in the playoffs. But even before that, it puts the Sox at a big disadvantage. Not only has Boston squandered a lead in the division, it has let a lead on the best overall record in the AL slip away, meaning that the Sox are likely to open the postseason on the road instead of inside the friendly confines of Fenway Park. That hurts, especially if it means a trip, perhaps even two, across the country to take on the Angels, who wrapped up the AL West yesterday afternoon.

It all makes for a big dilemma, the kind that you need a lot of time to scratch your head and think through. Kind of like trying to figure out the circumstances that led to waking up next to Rosanne Barr. Uggghhh!

– Cameron Smith