Hardball Heaven

I've never been all that big into booing -- I mean, I'll boo a guy for lack of effort, but if a guy's trying and he just plain sucks, he doesn't need me to boo his ass. He knows he's sucking the bit.

This morning, I bring you Eric Gagne as Exhibit A. The former dominant closer for the LA Dodgers was our big trading deadline pickup, and at the time, everyone in Red Sox Nation seemed pretty satisfied with the move that sent Kason Gabbard and David Murphy to Texas for Gagne.

A couple of months later, we're not feeling all that satisfied. Gagne has been absolutely, positively brutal and his sucky-ness continued last night on the biggest stage yet - Game 2 of the ALCS. In a 5-hour plus game that went 11 innings, Gagne had to be used out of necessity and the results were predictable. The Sox lost 13-6, and to be fair, Gagne's pen mates - especially Javier Lopez and Jon Lester - also provided the Indians with a few meatballs. But going forward, Terry Francona should immediately cease calling for Gagne to pitch in any ballgame.

Last night's loss was extremely disappointing on several levels. First, Curt Schilling looked crappy and old against an aggressive-hitting Indians team. After the Sox took a 3-1 lead, Schilling proceeded to cough up a clutch three-run homer to Jhonny Peralta. With the score 5-3 Indians, Manny the Bad Man again came up big, this time smashing an opposite-field homer to right-center to tie it at 5. Mike Lowell then went deep off the billboard to give the Sox a 6-5 lead and send the Fenway crowd into a frenzy. Alas, the Indians tied it up in their next ups and then it was 6-6 until the ugly proceedings in extra innings.

Going into this series, the consensus among the media 'experts' was that the Sox had the edge in the bullpen. That may be true, but only when Gagne doesn't get near the mound. The Sox now fly to Cleveland for Game 3 tomorrow night (Dice-K vs. Westbrook). Game 4 (Wakefield vs. Byrd) is Tuesday, and then Beckett will face Sabathia again in Game 5 on Thursday. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that this series is tied up. Cleveland's a good ballclub. It just sucks that we couldn't seal the deal last night.

Today, we get to take a break from baseball madness and focus on the Duel in Dallas between Tom Brady and Tony Romo. Should be a doozy.