The Red Sox' Tenth Man, Joe Maddon 

Many of us just witnessed one of the most embarrassing losses of the years for the Tampa Bay Rays. They had the game in their hands and they gave it away. I am very careful not to say that they let it slip away because they in fact gave it away. To be more precise, Joe Maddon gave it away.  

Why in Heaven's name was Grant Balfour still in the game after he gave up his second hit in the seventh? Why was Dan Wheeler still in the game after the second runner reached base in the eighth? In case you didn't notice, the Rays had lefty J.P. Howell ready in the bullpen on both occasions. That is not to mention two other lefties who could have been ready in Trever Miller and the much-heralded David Price. I don't even think that Chad Bradford even picked up a ball in the bullpen tonight and he is the highest paid pitcher on the staff.   

The Rays lost the first game of this series 2 - 1 and I believe Maddon was responsible for that simply because he didn't give his team a chance to win. Late in the game he had runners on first and third with no outs and didn't do anything. Dice-K was almost unhittable that night and the Rays were down 1 - 0. Cliff Floyd was the runner on first and Maddon let him run when he had Fernando Perez in the dugout. He let hitters hit with a 3 - 0 count, and they failed. He had two chances to bring in the tying run with a safety squeeze first and a suicide squeeze if that failed. If the Rays had scored that run, they would have continued the game with a tie score and had proof that they could score a run against Matsuzaka.