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No other way to describe the Red Sox Wednesday night and for the entire series in Tampa Bay.  Flop.

Using Billy Beane's mantra of spending the first 1/3 of the season evaluating, the second 1/3 trying to acquire the necessary fixes and the third 1/3 making your postseason run, well, I think we know what the necessary fix should be.

Upgrade to the bullpen.

Last night's bullpen collapse alone was enough to convince me of that.

2007 vs 2008 ERAs

1.85/2.00 - Papelbon

2.22/3.06 - Okajima

2.05/4.72 - Delcarmen

3.42/7.06 - Timlin

3.10/2.20 - Lopez

3.10/4.09 - Entire Bullpen

There you have it, a decrease in productivity for the bullpen.  Here's my plan to fix this:  Go get Eric Gagne.  Wait, wrong answer.  Is Calvin Schiraldi still pitching?

Look I don't know who to acquire, but it is clear what we are seeing of Hideki Okajima is more along the lines of what he is capable of.  Papelbon isn't quite the shutdown closer he was in 2007, although he is still good.  And Timlin, well, you know my thoughts on Mike.

Relievers are a tough bunch to gauge as they can go from being good to bad in a split second.  Gagne was a very good example of that.  He changed on a dime.

We are well into the middle 1/3 of the season and I think we can safely say the Red Sox bullpen needs fixing, so get busy Theo Epstein.

4 in the Bronx starting tonight.  If the Red Sox want to win one game this long-weekend, let alone win the series, both Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek need to figure out how to make contact with a fastball (or any pitch).  Manny swung through average fastball after average fastball Wednesday and the whole TB series while Varitek is just lost.  Which makes me wonder why Terry Francona ordered a hit and run in the 9th Wednesday night if A.)  JV isn't making contact with air right now and B.)  Mike Lowell is very slow.  Help me understand that one Terry.

Not to continue on Terry's case, but why did he leave Craig Hansen in there so long?  Hansen could not throw a strike and his fastball was at 91mph.  Brutal decision making by Terry Wednesday night.  I understand when nothing seems to be working, one might be hesitant to make too many changes, but the writing was on the wall with some of his decisions.  Terry is a good manager, but he had a bad night Wednesday.

Tabula Rasa boys.  Get to Yankee Stadium and start playing baseball again.