This is no longer funny. At all.

Let’s face it. As Red Sox fans, we walk through life half expecting for things to fall apart. It’s hard not to after ‘76, ‘86, ‘90, ‘03, well, you get the idea.

Nonetheless, there’s no way we could have seen this collapse coming. Sure, it hasn’t happened. Yet. But would anyone be surprised if the Yankees got even closer to the division lead as the incredible shrinking advantage keeps getting more and more meager?

Christina Pickles? Should have just ordered take-out Tito.

Last night’s win was abhorrently stupid, with an ineffective knuckleball starter left in too long - does anyone else get the feeling Tim Wakefield is cooked? - and a parade of relievers who refused to, or were not let to, intentionally walk a slugger hotter than boiling oil. When Frank Thomas starts smacking the ball, you just don’t pitch to him. If anyone forgot that, last night was a powerful reminder that he’s not dead yet.

Of course, like Adam Sandler has said in the past, that could have been brought to our attention YESTERDAY!!! And like a slutty yet ugly villian in a bad, cliched Sandler pick, Terry Francona was buying any line last night. Either that or he was intentionally torpedoing his team’s chances.

A classic comedy with a classic one-liner. Time to cue it up Sox fans.

We’re betting it was the former, because no one would want to hook up with Christina Pickles. But after the decisions with the bullpen over the past week, one has to ask the question nonetheless.

That leads to the second time in a week that second-year cancer survivor Jon Lester will have to come up big. Wakefield couldn’t do it. Curt Schilling couldn’t do it. Now we’re going to ask the kid lefty from the Northwest to do it? Are we sure?

And perhaps equally importantly, does anyone else want to throw the whole Clay Buchholz structured inning idea out the window and pitch him right now?

How about yesterday? The Sox could have used a lot of him.

– Cameron Smith