I blame Theo

Well, last night's game turned out to be an entire roller coaster of emotions. We won. You might be thinking to yourself, 'How is that possible?' I mean, I saw the game and I'm still asking myself that question. But we did win, and here are some of the key points:

• We still allowed 9 stolen bases
• Big Papi was benched -- more on this below
• Lowell and Tek were brought into the game and made positive contributions (Tek did with a double and a walk, Lowell had a walk).
  
• Darnell McDonald ('Who?' You may be asking yourself. And rightly so. He was called up from Pawtucket as a possible replacement for Ellsbury) hit not only a 2-run home run to tie the game, but also an almost-Monster home run in the 9th to bring in the winning run. Red Sox Nation, being what it is, has already christened him 'D-Mac.'

So back to Big Papi. Sure, he's had a bad start this year. There is no question. And he's not really hitting; in fact, his average is .146, which is just not okay for a DH obviously. But what we've been seeing this year is not a happy man. He's been frustrated from the start. I'm calling out Epstein on this one. In a press conference at the end of last season, he made it very clear that unless Ortiz started producing, there would no longer be a place for him on this team. Papi seems to have listened. He lost a bunch of weight coming into spring training and he seemed committed to it (and he was even hitting then). So what went wrong? I think the pressure of knowing that he could be gone is getting to him, hence the breaking of the bat over his knee. I didn't like when Epstein called him out and I don't think that this move has helped anything. So yeah, Theo, on this one, it's your fault.

I've cracked Theo Epstein's Strategic Plan

So I've found a crucial pattern in this year's Red Sox leaders. See graphic. Note first letter of 87.5% of the guys there. Note that remaining 12.5% has an adjacent letter in the alphabet. Clearly we need more people whose names start with 'J.'

When I started thinking this through, though, I realized that maybe this was no co-incidence, since it seems that we have been accumulating numerous players whose name starts with 'J.' Think about it. Our entire outfield comprises of J-guys: JD Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Jason Bay. We almost have an entire starting rotation made up of J-guys: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and Junichi Tazawa (what do you want to bet that Epstein gets Johan Santana in the off-season? Not very much, right, because now you see his plan!). Who do we keep putting in at shortstop? Jeb Lowry (even though I do not understand this since I think Alex Gonzalez has done very well....but now I've hit upon the answer). Of course, our closer is Jonathan Papelbon. Daniel Bard taking over that spot? Yeah, right!

This makes our trade of Justin Masterson all the more baffling. But I'm sure Theo has a plan to get him back.

Also, I hope that we aren't planning to re-sign Johnny Damon anytime soon.