One louder*

I had a lot of mixed emotions watching Pedro get shelled by the Red Sox last night, and I was struggling to find the right words to express them. Thankfully, Beth came up with a beauty of a post, which perfectly captured the moment:

I wanted the Sox to win, of course. But the game I wanted to win wasn't like this. The game I'd envisioned, looked forward to for months, was a duel between the young phenom and the old master; the game I'd envisioned was something like the one-run beauty between Pedro and David Wells, pitching for the Padres, back around this time in 2004. A game deserving of both its pitching headliners--a game, in other words, in which there is a loss, but no defeat.

In the end the game was nothing like that. Instead, you sat there instnctively grinning as the Red Sox piled on a ton of runs, only to think to yourself a second later: "This shouldn't be happening to Pedro." Like Beth, there came a point where I just wanted Willie Randolph to get Pedro out of there (just about the time you could hear the mocking "Pe-dro" chant echo around Fenway, just as it has done in the past for "Ro-ger.")

Once he was gone, it was as if a weight had been lifted from our shoulders:

The young, invincible, mean Pedro Martinez was once and for all a thing of the past.

A ghost.

We could finally get on with the business at hand, namely adding another game to this unbelievable streak the Sox have going. That's the bottom line, but you can't get on with real life (baseball life, at least) if you're still exorcising your ghosts.

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Just one brief observation from the game: if ever the RemDawg decides to call it a day in the broadcast booth (which I hope won't happen until about 2020), then I propose that the Sox make a pitch for Ron Darling. I enjoyed listening to him doing color for the Nationals last year and it was good to see him do an inning of last night's game on NESN. He has good insights into the game, and is one of that rare breed of announcers which knows that it's all about the game, not the guys announcing it.

*The title was originally intended as a musical nod towards Baseball Desert contributor DBF, but I've just read Jere's take on last night's game and am starting to hear that spooky Twilight Zone music somewhere deep inside my brain.