I am proud to announce that the Boston Red Sox have decided to open a brand new Institute for Advanced Science!

The venerable Daisuke Matsuzaka, who will surely become the most expensive physics professor in the history of the world, will be the first tenured faculty member. He will draw upon his vast knowledge in the area of streamlined, aerodynamic flight to raise a whole new generation of power-hitting, RBI-producing, pocket-protecting nerds.

You can still rest easy, however; this alternate career will not distract the man from his primary duty of raising the collective batting average of the rest of the league.

Okay, perhaps I am being a wee bit harsh, but the guy did manage to give up eight hits and seven earned runs in just two innings to the Tampa Bay Rays! This is a team that, going into the now-abbreviated three game series with the Red Sox at Fenway, had scored only 20 runs all season. In fact, if you remove the nine runs they scored in their only non-Sox victory, they only mustered 11 runs in eight games, and more than two runs in only two games.

In case I’m not painting the picture accurately, let me state this as clearly as I can: The Rays suck…

And yet the Red Sox, to their eternal credit, a testament to their unwavering resolve, were unwilling to be second best! They saw the Rays magical season of tragedy and horror and said, “we can do better than that!” And better they were, losing the two games they played in both spectacular and soul-crushing fashion before Boston fans began weeping so profusely that they flooded the field and forced a postponement of the final match.

This team is much too good at this…

Lester may have been the lone bright spot in the growing rubble of a rapidly crumbling season, building off his stellar outing against the Indians by throwing another seven quality innings. He allowed three earned runs and struck out another eight in a heart-breaking 3-2 loss on Tuesday night.

After the game, he demonstrated the tremendous class and character that can only be found in the spirit of a man of his caliber, when he told reporters, clad in only a towel the size of a face cloth and eating a salami sandwich the size of a basketball, that he “wonders if the Patriots need a backup quarterback.”

So, thanks to the deluge of tears, the Red Sox have two days off. Rumor has it that Terry Francona has already locked the clubhouse doors and refuses to let the players leave until they “think about what they’ve done!” Pedroia did throw a brief tantrum, but Franconca called him into his office and made him sit in the corner until he calmed down enough to take his daily nap.

When the Blue Jays come to town on Friday, all of Red Sox Nation will watch carefully as the team tries to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and squeeze out a couple of wins. Otherwise, I suggest they go for broke and start actively trying to lose; running out singles to third base, pitching from shortstop, forgoing the center fielder, letting Papelbon close…

If they’re going to lose, they may as well make us laugh.

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