A funny thing happened on the way to the World Series last night. Chien Ming Wang and the undermanned, underhyped, undertalented made the Red Sox, otherwise known as the finest team to ever take the field, look a little ridiculous. Or the Red Sox hitters made themselves look ridiculous a long time before Wang took the hill and he just kept getting them out. What a shame that was.

Perhaps a little bit more shocking was the fact that the Yankees managed to get hits against Clay Buchholz. Didn't any one bother to inform these so-called Bronx Bombers that Buchholz threw a no hitter last season even before he was officially a rookie? Who gave them the right to beat the Red Sox at Fenway with the future of the Red Sox rotation facing them? It's simply outrageous. This sort of aggression won't stand.

A cynical theory could be advanced to suggest that the vastly superior Red Sox are simply lulling the manifestly inferior Yankees into a false sense of security. And one could say the whole of Major League Baseball, what with David Ortiz off to what can only charitably called a slow start this season.

An even more cynical theory could be advanced to suggest that maybe the Red Sox who are desperate to increase their fan base in the Pacific Rim didn't want to humiliate Chien Ming Wang, the darling of Taiwanese fans, because they may need to squeeze every cent out of that region. While it is improbable, it bears consideration. What with the subprime catastrophe and the dangerously large portions of American financial services companies being purchased by foreign sovereign wealth firms, the "tough yuppie" (and if you think that that term is an oxymoron, ask a Red Sox fan and he'll tell you, or at the very least whip a piece of pizza off the back of your head when you turn your back) is facing tough times. And we all know that this legendary "tough yuppie" is the backbone of Red Sox Nation.

A still more cynical theory could be advanced to show that the Red Sox who are starting off more slowly than their teammates this season are the guys who reinvented their careers since signing with the Red Sox. Now that George Mitchell's "report" has been exposed to the light of day and a member of the Red Sox board of directors is no longer serving as MLB's watchdog for illicit performance enhancing substances, it seems slightly coincidental that the thriving's run out for some of the players who feasted on opposing pitchers while under Mitchell's protection. But then I never was one for buying coincidences...

As for Mike Mussina outdueling Josh Beckett and not in that good Las Vegas way, but in the bad, let's see who can allow more runs today way... I'm not letting that worry me too much, either. Mussina entered whatever phase comes after the twilight of a pitcher's career before John Kerry invented Manny Ortez as a favorite current Red Sox player.