The Futility Infielder

Let's face it: the Red Sox have Kevin Brown's number in Fenway Park. For the second start in a row, on Saturday night they made short work of the 39-year-old Yankee starter in their domicile, roughing him up for four runs and knocking him out after two innings. It was yet another sign that the former ace is no longer the big-game pitcher the Yanks thought they traded for last winter.

But unfortunately for the Sox, who came in to the game trailing New York 2-0 in the American League Championship Series, their own starter, Bronson Arroyo, couldn't live up to his modest reputation for giving the Yankees fits. The Yanks punished the tough-talking young headhunter for six runs in two-plus innings, and once they chased him, they spent the next three hours dining on Cream of Bullpen. Even for the Bronx Bombers, it was a surreal display of firepower: 22 hits on 19 runs, the latter an LCS record and a Yankee postseason mark as well.

The heart of the Yankee order, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, and Bernie Williams, combined for 14 runs, 16 hits, 15 RBI, six doubles and four home runs -- 34 total bases in all. Godzilla continued his monster postseason with five hits and five RBI, bookending his night with two-run homers in the first and ninth innings. A-Rod drove in the game's first run and smoked a game-tying homer in the third after the Yanks had briefly surrendered the lead. Sheffield clubbed a three-run Green Monster shot in the fourth that put the Yanks ahead for good. Williams established career LCS records for hits (47), total bases (77) and RBI (29). With the exception of John Olerud, who made some fine defensive plays when the game's outcome was still in doubt, every Yankee starter figured in the scoring.

The deluge, which at one point included 11 unanswered runs, so vexed the Red Sox that manager Terry Francona tore up his already-tattered blueprint for the rest of the series, bringing Game Four scheduled starter Tim Wakefield in for relief shortly after Sheffield's homer. Though he gave the Sox badly needed innings, he too got torched. And while Brown's replacement, Javier Vazquez, was shaky as well, he at least strung together three zeroes in a row while his team padded their lead with that double-digit outburst and spared Joe Torre's bullpen from overexposure.

The onslaught also erased mistakes on both sides. Manny Ramirez ran Boston out of the first inning by getting gunned down at third base (though replays showed he was probably safe). A Miguel Cairo brain-cramp led to Johnny Damon taking an extra base on an RBI single in the second inning. A Derek Jeter error scored another run for the Sox soon afterwards. Ramiro Mendoza balked in a run to put the Yanks up 5-4 Bill Mueller was thrown out at home plate hot on the heels of teammate Kevin Millar, who had just tied the game at six. With the game reset after three bizarre, interminable frames, none of these ugly plays even put a dent in the final outcome.

Now down 3-0, the Sox have been pushed to the brink of a humiliating elimination. Derek Lowe and his 9.28 ERA against the Yanks represents the shaky first line of defense against the prospect of a pinstriped celebration on the Fenway Park field. For all of the "cowboy up" and "shut up 55,000 New Yorkers" chest-thumping talk on the part of Boston, for all of the so-called experts and the gambling public who made them favorites coming into the series, this really couldn't get much better for the Yankees or more embarrassing for the Red Sox.

No baseball team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series. For that matter, no basketball team has ever done so; to find a professional team that has accomplished the feat, one has to look to a 29-year-old series in the nearly-defunct National Hockey League for an example of how it's done.

To Boston's credit, this Red Sox team is always capable of putting a crooked number up on the scoreboard, and as Game One of the series showed, virtually no lead is safe against them. Not until Matsui's second homer last night, giving the Yanks an 11-run margin, did it seem as though the Sox had been subdued.

But subdued would be an understatement for the way New Englanders seem to feel. Here's Bambino's Curse's Edward Cossette:

...is there anyone left who wants to argue that the Red Sox are actually the better team than the Yankees?

If so, you may also want to tackle the job of defending Scott Peterson in the murder of his wife Laci.

...Last year on October 17th, one day after the 7th game of the ALCS I suggested there's nobility in loosing such a close one, in fighting the good fight with the Yankees. Last year, as Red Sox fans, even in defeat we could hold our heads high.

A year later, I make no such pronouncements. There is no dignity at hand today.

Cursed and First's Beth, one of my favorite Red Sox Nation bloggers, was downright irate:

I hate life. I hate the world. I hate myself. I hate the Red Sox.

There. I said it. I hate the fucking Red Sox.

Want to call me off the bandwagon? Sure. Stamp my fucking ticket if you want. I'm outta here. I'm off to go do something more fun, like drink myself to death.

Maybe, just maybe, if any of these three straight games they've dropped had been hard-fought, Game 7 type games, I'd have even the slightest creeping hope that they'd come back. But I don't. Does that make me a bad fan? Fucking sue me. Oh, and bite me while you're at it.

Ouch. And those are the articulate ones willing to share their feelings.

Are the Yanks really this much better than the Sox? Frankly, no. These two bitter rivals have now split 22 games this year while reminding each other that in a short series anything can happen and usually does. They've taken turns dominating each other, alternating sweeps and blowouts like a true slugfest in which one heavyweight's attack leaves him winded and vulnerable to the other's pulverizing blows. Play another half-dozen games, and the Yankees might be the ones with their eyes swollen shut from the beatings. Unfortunately for the Sox, their schedule looks much shorter than that, and for all of their fiestiness, it's questionable how much fight they have left in them. Rain, pain, and pray to be slain might be their motto.

With the Sox already being fitted for a blindfold and a cigarette, the Yanks send Orlando Hernandez to finish the job tonight. El Duque has pitched exactly three innings over the last three weeks and suffered from a "tired" right shoulder, so it's questionable how deep he'll be able to go. But New York's bullpen is in much better shape than the Boston's, and they've got a huge cushion overall. For all of his shakiness, Vazquez sponged up the innings admirably last night.

The Sox, behind Lowe, aren't nearly so lucky; their relievers have had to throw 14 of the series' 25 innings against the Yankee bats. With the exception of Keith Foulke, who's been limited to one inning, every one of them has been scored upon. Don't be surprised if there's more Cream of Bullpen on the Fenway menu tonight.