You know, back in the day, when a woman was ready to give birth, she got carted off to the maternity ward while the father stayed far, far away from the hospital, drinkin’ whiskey and buying up cheap cigars. So if last night’s game was played, oh, back in 1908, Jason Bay might have been around to lend his team a critical at-bat. Instead, because this is the twenty-first century, he remained at his wife’s side as she delivered the couple’s second child. And now we’re one game back in the AL East standings. Happy f@#kin’ birthday, kid.

I’m joking, of course, and we send nothing but the very best wishes to Bay and his family, although his bat–or even Drew’s for that matter–would have been a welcome sight in this almost offense-free showing (and the honeymoon’s over for Mark Kotsay, who’s one for his last 20, although he still cuts a handsome figure at the plate, kinda like a lost Baldwin brother). Following a night in which we came out guns blazin’ and fists flyin’, the Sox’ bats went curiously and furiously limp, scratching out a mere five hits and failing to get absolutely anything going against the likes of these guys:

If we take anything good from this loss, it is that Josh Beckett seems to have found his inner Josh Beckett. And with Beckett feeling kinda Beckett, I like our chances in the postseason. Which isn’t to say that the postseason’s gonna be any kind of cakewalk. We know it won’t be, because the Rays will be there. And admit it, deep down you know that the ALCS is going to come down to us and them. Old School versus New School. Papi versus Pena. Teets’ full-body pace versus Maddon’s hipster shades. Wally versus whatever the f@#k that Rays mascot is.

The day of judgement is coming, my brothers and sisters. Look busy.

Oh, and tonight, we’ll be liveblogging the final game of the Sox-Rays set. It’s something we don’t do often–the last one, in fact, was opening day in Japan, a game famously marred for me by the good folks at Comcast. And that’s because we’re typically too drunk or hopped up on Cap’n Crunch to be coherent. But then we thought, when, over the last four years, has coherence really been a big concern for us? So we invite you to follow the game with us here and with the fine folks who work it out every night in our comments section. Two ways to play, really. Because we love you so much.