Ick.

It's been a while since i've had this taste of bile in my mouth. What a horrible and grueling weekend. What went wrong? Well, pretty much everything. (I say pretty much because Manny was out of control and both Schilling and Wells actually pitched quite well.) The paucity of timely hitting, the 3 dreadful starts, the gruesome bullpen numbers - this is some of the worst collective baseball i've seen in longer than I care to remember. They pretty much have sucked since they were swept by the Royals a couple of weeks ago but this series was the icing on the cake. Taking into consideration the rapidly dwindling number of games left and the general play of the teams with whom we're competing, the hurdles we need to negotiate in order to even have a chance at playoff possibilities seem virtually insurmountable.
Never has Varitek's importance been more apparent, especially in regards to the bullpen. Long the bedrocks of our pen this year, Timlin's - and to a lesser extent Papelbon's - struggles seem to have coincided with Varitek's absence. If you throw all of the other struggling young arms used to his guiding presence into the mix, you start to recognize his incalcuable value to the team. Just an observation.
I have no idea what the next few days will show but the team is battered after not only the crushing defeats but also the interminable games of intense baseball themselves. And to add further insult to injury, now they have straight late games on the west coast over the next 6 nights.
It ain't looking good, kids.