Tonight was a big confidence booster for the Red Sox. So what if the Rockies aren't any good, and so what that they lucked out in not facing Brandon Webb when they played the Diamondbacks. That doesn't mean that even though the Yankees won again tonight the Red Sox shouldn't feel super confident that they're on the right track again. One of Terry Francona's questionable moves worked, apparently proving that there is some truth to the old saying that even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.

Francona dropped Julio Lugo to ninth in the order and batted Dustin Pedroia in the leadoff spot. It was inspired strategery on the part of Tito. After all, it energized the hell out of the Red Sox lineup. When you face the Colorado Rockies in your park and you hold them to one run while scoring two runs of your own, you are onto something.

What might be lost in a mad dash to pat the skipper on the back for this piece of brilliant maneuvering is the fact that the Red Sox have invested more than $12 million of the $143,123,714 the team will pay its players this season on two guys who were each supposed to replace Johnny Damon at the top of the order. And what do they have to show for it but two broken toys?

Coco Crisp is currently batting eighth, and hasn't been asked to hit in the top spot since last season. He is batting .225 and is on pace to get 130 hits and score 84 runs this season. There was a time when the expression all glove, no bat was all the rage in professional baseball. It's just not supposed to be a part of the sport's vernacular in the 21st century, not in the AL, anyway.

Julio Lugo just hit a double, stole a base and scored a run tonight. Apparently being dropped in the order woke him up to his obligations to the team. Prior to the game, Lugo was hitting .215 and on pace to get 139 hits and score 80 runs. Of course since the Sox acquired Lugo prior to the NFL introducing its new personal conduct policy, the Sox could turn a blind eye to any disturbing allegations of character issues from Lugo's past.

Damon's numbers might not be so impressive right now, hitting .260 and on pace to score only 92 runs. But unlike Crisp or Lugo, Damon is trending up right now. Over his last seven games, he's hitting .320. It is true that he makes more than the two combined, but even with nagging injuries, Damon is still batting leadoff and has helped spark the Yankees offensive surge over the last 10 days. Crisp and Lugo are still in a downward spiral, and (coincidentally?) so are the Red Sox.

It's just too bad that the Sox are playing the Rockies and the Giants in Fenway. There is so much that should be giving me hope, but with two comparatively weak opponents, the Red Sox have far more time to iron out the wrinkles in their lineup before they give back enough games to make my ill-advised prediction of the not-too-distant past come true.

Every now and then, I like to do some investigating into weighty matters. And every now and then in the course of these investigations, I find myself confronting a situation that baffles me. For instance, one can purchase citizenship in Red Sox Nation for an annual investment of $9.95. However, if one would like the become a citizen of RemDawg Nation, that dubious honor will cost you $19.95. It's a full ten dollars more expensive per annum to belong to the legion of minions associated with the team's announcer than it is to join the team's official legion of fans? That just doesn't make sense.

Apropos of nothing else I have discussed to this point, here is a link you absolutely have to read. I laughed hysterically for about 15 minutes as I read it. It is a collection of results of bizarre attempts to mail outlandish objects via the US Postal Service.

There are some things in life that come down to a question of perspective. For instance, one man's glowing tribute to a deceased icon from another team in another sport in another era can also be another man's shameless attempt to exploit a populace of sheep when the market for a given team's paraphernalia is saturated. Apparently every fan who wants them must already have all the pink shirts and red shirts and blue shirts that they could justify owning. So the Red Sox brass cooked up a blatant, disgusting sham of a tribute to Red Auerbach tonight.

Perhaps I'm too cynical, and I allow my hatred of the Red Sox to cloud my mind. Maybe that's why I think it strange that the Red Sox chose the night of their first home game against the New York Yankees to lament the passing of the greatest basketball mind since Naismith. I'm sure it was just coincidence that it should happen to be a Friday night and a national TV game. There is no way that this fine event could have any ulterior motive.

Giving the devil his due, I must congratulate whichever of Henry's minions was responsible for engineering and marketing this "tribute." Even I, believing it to be artificial and in poor taste as I do, think it was brilliant. Bringing the 16 banners from the rafters across town to adorn the Green Monster before the game started was the mot juste. I only wish that I and my small band of loyal readers were that clever and that shameless, maybe then I'd break the century mark for daily hits.

Fortunately for me, the universe has a way of evening the scales. Somewhere, I think Red might have cracked a smile about something that happened in Boston sports for the first time in years after A Rod took Big Schill deep in the 4th. It was also edifying to see Mientkiewicz advance two runners with a sacrifice bunt to help the Yankees manufacture their first run of the night. Up until Varitek tied the game with what I can only assume to have been Sammy Sosa's infamous batting practice bat and Crisp hit that triple, I was convinced that the bottom three in the Red Sox order would struggle to manufacture a case of athlete's foot.

Interestingly, down by 3 in the seventh, Francona elected to pinch hit Wily Mo Pena for Pedroia with runners on first and second rather than sacrifice to advance the runners. Perhaps Francona was thinking (assuming he can, in fact, think) that Petite was tiring. Unfortunately, that was not the case. He struck out Pena, and Proctor came on to retire Lugo and Youkilis. It is also possible that Francona may not have even known the situation. Or maybe he just had no confidence that the top of his order could drive in runners from second and third with one out should he call for the sacrifice.

I understand that one run one run isn't going to tie the game there, and it is now a moot point because the Yankee bullpen made the lead go away in the 8th. But at least it's more proactive to sacrifice and advance runners to second and third with one out than it is to sit back and hope for a big inning. But I blame myself for the 8th inning rally more than I blame the Yankees or credit the Sox. I jinxed the Yankees, because I had written this joke: "that rally just died in Jason Varitek's arms as though it were the 1980s band Cutting Crew" as he stepped to the plate. I feel like a tool right now, but I leave it in for the sake of intellectual honesty.

And Francona was lucky that burning Pena by pinch hitting him when he couldn't field Pedroia's position did not come back to haunt him tonight. The fact that it would have made infinitely more baseball sense to pinch hit Cora and have him execute the sacrifice or strike out like Pena did than wasting Pena in the first place did should temper the pride Red Sox Nation derives from tonight's comeback victory ever so slightly. I will concede that pinch running for Giambi made perfect sense right up until the point where a spare part from and made up of lesser spare parts unknown made the last out of the game batting fifth.

The Red Sox had no confidence going into that 8th inning. You could see Schilling's man-and-a-half sized ego deflate when A Rod hit his second. Personally, I think that it should have counted as a grand slam, even though only two men were on base at the time. After all, Coco Crisp managed to fall out of the field of play into the home bullpen, very nearly breaking his back in the process. The total, complete and utter humiliation for the player and the team in that one shining moment ought to be worth at least one additional run on the scoreboard.

Even in the ninth, when the Sox sent Hideki Okajima out to pitch to the heart of the Yankee lineup, it could not help but remind Red Sox Nation that Papelbon must be treated with kid gloves as though he were Samuel L. Jackson's character in Unbreakable this season. But Okajima rose to the challenge. He was a little upset with some of the calls that led to the Abreu walk. And maybe he had a point, but Abreu has a reputation for having a good eye, and reputation goes a long way. There was a time when Greg Maddux could bounce the ball like a cricket bowler throwing a googly and still get a strike call. That's the way it goes.

The guy I go to for my Red Sox information actually called me before the game to get in my eye about the green uniforms. His quote at the time: "Think Notre Dame." Of course, I didn't point out that Notre Dame hasn't exactly produced the desired result in their last few green jersey games (last year's game against Army doesn't really count). I was saving that for a big moment, like the second A Rod homer, but alas, he wasn't taking my call.

I do have to give him credit on one point, he said that he saw Schilling letting up at least five runs tonight. And he had that part right. He wasn't concerned when I spoke to him before the game, because Pettite didn't scare him. I guess he was right about that too, since Pettite was good enough when he had to be, but not exactly dominant over his 6 and 1/3 innings of work.

Even with the Red Sox having all the momentum because of their impressive comeback, this shapes up to be an interesting series for the Yankees. It is not going to be easy to win tomorrow or Sunday, with Karstens and Chase Wright making their Fenway debuts. Pettite came up big for them, and it would have been nice not to have wasted his performance. It would be nice to have the Sox lose two games this weekend and a sweep would have been awesome, but that's obviously impossible now.

I must say I wonder whether the artificial confidence a sweep for the hated Red Sox would instill in Red Sox Nation might have been worth all the bragging bravado I would have to endure. After all, sweeping that mighty lineup would not be a miracle (or even a fair sized country wonder to borrow an expression from Edwin O'Connor) with the starting rotation decimated by injuries to Wang, Pavano and Mussina. A comeback against Rivera is nice, and three blown saves for a closer of his stature is not exactly encouraging even if it is only April.

Rooting against the Red Sox is far more important than rooting for any one team. I will enjoy the inevitable collapse of this team with its suspect fourth and fifth starters, still not exactly proven middle relief and pathetic hitters manning the last third of the order. The bullpen held the fort and even chumps like Varitek, Crisp and Cora can't get out all the time. It is possible that I should be more repentant or keep silent, but I'm just not that kind of guy.

After all, I can't help wondering now that all the king's horses and all the king's men managed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again...how humble is Humpty Dumpty? I'm surprised he hasn't posted yet. I wonder, since my technical consultant tells me that a hit on this site has originated from a password protected area of wordpress (which supports his blog) twice in the past two weeks, whether he's waiting on me waiting on him?