Helloooooooo, 3.5 GB

Here's the question we should all be asking:

If Manny Delcarmen, with an ERA approaching 4 (it should be far over that but for the way inherited runners are attributed to a pitcher's line) and 32 hits in 34 innings pitched cannot get an out or even remember to cover first base in a standard play, should he be allowed to fuck up continually?

Ok, so that's a rhetorical question because the answer is a really loud "NO!", but that's not the point. The Sox are on the downside of their touted "even keel", and unfortunately the timing has them on the verge of slipping to almost 4 games back. The problem with what happened in the 7th inning is the timing. The Sox go into New York this weekend and are going to be facing a Yankee lineup that has suddenly remembered that, well, they're the Yankee lineup, and our bullpen has thrown more in the last three days than in the last three weeks (I exaggerate, but it's probably pretty close).

Here's the point of all this. I think Tito needs to hang Delcarmen or Hansen (his clone) out to dry once in a while. Too often they come in to a close game and let it get blown open, or they put men on base who shouldn't be there, unable to set down the Punch and Judy's of the league. For once they need to bear down and pitch themselves out of the holes they dig. It really has to be the only way they're going to learn anything, because theyr'e too busy riding high on whatever hype or good feeling that is in that bullpen. Somebody has to go the extra mile and give the other pitchers some rest.

As I'm sitting here writing this, Mike Lowell is thrown out in an attempted steal of second. Mike Lowell. After the first hit and run or whatever attempt was ruined by a foul ball by Jason Varitek.

You know what, at this point the only question we should be asking is, "why?"