wanna get away?

yeah. so that happened. kinda glad i wasn't there for that one-hit Sox game last night. it kind of reaches a point during a trouncing of that nature when all you can do is find the humor. because if you don't laugh, you might punch something--which means you either end up damaging some of your possessions or, if you're me, yourself. i choose laughter.

at any rate, it couldn't possibly be worse to be anyone else on the Red Sox right now than Javier Lopez, i'm thinking. talk about a bad week. first you blow a game by making a dumb error. then two days later, you're pitching so poorly that the manager comes to the mound, holds his hand out for the ball & then essentially says "wait just a minute, son." at which point he explains to you that the bullpen has been taxed lately and with this set to be a potentially grueling four-game series in The Pit of Despair where the Sox can't seem to come up on the right side of things more than once every dozen or so games, he just doesn't feel like burning through another valuable arm in the eighth inning of a 12-0 implosion.

so... sorry, Javi, but you don't get to hide in a corner of the dugout in shame. or retreat silently to the showers. nope. Tito points Lopez out to right field where he will be swapping places with one Jonathan Van Every, newly nominated pseudo-reliever. at one point, Lopez laughed when Tito was talking to him. then he stopped. probably when he understood that this wasn't a joke.

imagine, if you will, what it must be like to be Lopez standing out there. he had to have been praying for the concrete floor & plastic grass to open up & swallow him whole. promising anything he could think of to prevent a hit of any sort from coming his direction. which, inevitably, it did...allowing the Rays to score lucky run number 13. and watching while the outfielder does your job, pitching the final two outs of the inning. now i have had some awful days at work, but i am positive none of them have been *that* bad.

also? i am so relieved that Ellsbury broke up Matt Garza's potential no-hitter/perfect game because i could not bear living down here & hearing about that for the rest of all time, 328 times during every subsequent Sox-Rays matchup.

tonight i take it live. instead of yelling at my tv, i'll be trapped in the Juice Box with the clanging of 600-million cowbells cheering my boys on in person. (and sending anyone with the initials J.L. "sit your ass down" looks every time i see so much as a muscle twitch.) i really hope my Harbinger of Defeat curse has worn off after witnessing the only victory in the previous 11 outings last September. cross your fingers, fellow Sox fans.

and just remember: no matter how bad your day is going, at least you aren't Javier Lopez.