The Morning After: To the moon Alice!

How bad did Josh Beckett feel last night.

For once in the past couple of months, Beckett had more than one run of support. In fact, he had two homers from David Ortiz alone. But last night, unlike nearly every other Beckett start this year, that wasn’t enough.

Alice Kramden: cute in the 50’s, but as a 70 year-old with fishnet stockings? Egghhhhh.

In retrospect, even four runs wouldn’t have been enough.

And Beckett had no problem showing off that frustration, slamming his glove against the dugout fence repeatedly after leaving the game with a deficit. Suddenly, the Sox’ burgeoning ace has lost two straight, is attacking inanimate objects like a drunken Ralph Kramden and scowling like a man who was scored by Alysa Milano.

Hey, come to think of it …

That’s really what last night was for Becket: an evening where he left thinking he was going home with Alyssa again, then waking up the next morning with Audrey Meadows (that’s Honeymooners star Alice Kramden, for those of you who don’t stay up late enough to watch TVLand). In her seventies. Wearing fishnet stockings. You get the idea.

So what does Beckett have to do to get his once-prohibitive Cy Young season back on track? It’s really not that difficult. He has to stop leaving balls over the middle of the plate. He has to keep mixing pitches against a team that’s seen him plenty like Baltimore. And he has to get lucky enough not to hit up against a buzzsaw of a line-up like the Orioles are throwing out there at the moment.

Josh was not so excited about playing Jackie Gleason’s role.

But more importantly, the Red Sox have to figure out how to get over a tough loss on a day when they were counting on reaping the benefits of a big-deal bounce. Eric Gagne is great, but he’s worthless unless he’s setting up a Jonathan Papelbon save.

That’s not happening unless Beckett - as well as either Julian Tavarez or Tim Wakefield today - can hold a lead through seven innings.

– Cameron Smith