You know my feelings on Wakefield. The theory is simple: "Never take him out." Tonight, I think most people would've agreed with me when Tito took him out after he'd given up a grand total of one run.

So I was kind of pissed, and scared, to see Delcarmen in there. In fact, after he walked one guy and went 3-1 on Sosa, I was ready to do the "say I'm boycotting the team but really come back the next day after sleeping on it (but acting all serious about the boycott at first!)" routine. But Manny came through, and, I think, after seeing him get out of that inning against the Giants on Father's Day, I'm now fully confident in the guy. (And I love how he's from Boston and said that if he'd been drafted by anyone else, he'd have said "Sorry, I only wanna play for the Red Sox. Plus he married his high school sweetheart, which is always noble, despite sometimes being a huge mistake--hopefully they stay together and he doesn't do that "famous person" cliche of dumping your non-famous spouse for another famous person.)

So, this brings up another point. Joy of Sox had earlier said he felt Papelbon shouldn't be automatically used in the ninth. Like, if it's a tougher situation in the eighth, go with him to get out of it, to make the ninth possible. Then go with someone else. At the time, I wondered if this theory only exists because we, as Sox fans, haven't known a lights-out eighth inning man in a while. But with Okajima pitching incredibly, and with the rest of the bullpen being pretty solid, it's almost like you can just plug the guys in by inning. Pap in the 9th. Okajima in the 8th. And if you need anyone before that, you've got all these other guys you can, for the most part, trust.

What I'm saying is, "R pen rulz!" It's a good feeling. It also means I won't feel the need to stick with Wake at all costs--another theory that came from not trusting your 'pen.

Great job by Pap overcoming the two iffy calls against Lofton, and getting Michael Young, who put up a great fight. We didn't wanna blow this one....

About this whole car racing thing: I guess I'll reluctantly say that I'm happy they're doing yet another thing to get us more revenue/attention. But don't expect me to become a racing fan anytime soon. I did come across a race the other day on TV where they didn't just go around in ovals. I think they called it a "street course." It was actually kind of fun. I watched for a full minute. No lie.

So it was racing people that threw out the first balls tonight. Worst period, first pitch period, ever period. You had three people throwing to three catchers. The old dude on the right did the classic move I remember from Wheel of Fortune, where you hear the spinner cheer when the wheel lands on "Bankrupt," and you realize, when Sajak says "remember to watch that arrow directly in front of you," that they were watching the wrong arrow. So this guy's only seeing the middle catcher, and even though the catcher on the right (the one in front of him) is waving his (her?) arms, you just know he's not seeing it. Sure enough, his throw goes toward the middle catcher, and goes to the backstop. The middle person's throw goes, I'd say accidentally, toward the right catcher, at which point the middle catcher, who may have been Timlin, has to dive in front of the left catcher, saving him from getting nailed. And it's all capped off by the left person firing one wide and off the glove of the left catcher, and to the backstop. An ominous start to Roush/Fenway racing. Let's hope they go the right way around the track....

For his hustle to get home with what turned out to be the winning run before Ortiz was tagged out on the basepaths, Youk is the co-JPotG winner. The other half goes to Manny, who hit the ball on the play and hustled to first himself, causing the third baseman to choose tagging Papi over trying to get the out at first. (Note to Manny-haters: He's been hustling a lot this season--but forget about that. Have you noticed neither Lowell nor Ortiz has run out a ground ball in about a year and a half?