Our pitching staff is having the week from hell. Derek Lowe lost to Baltimore in the Memorial Day makeup game; Bronson Arroyo and Pedro Martinez lost to the Angels; last night Tim Wakefield lost to the Kansas City Royals and Jimmy Gobble (a name at least as unfortunate as that of J. J. Putz). The Yankees again won by a single run—I don’t know how many one-run victories they’ve rung up so far this year, but it seems like a lot—and we once more got half-bucked to death as KC put up a run here and a run there until the game was out of reach. It’s the kind of slow bleed that drives managers crazy. Mark Bellhorn did not help the cause any by running into an out between third and home, killing a potential rally.

I think that for serious Sox fans, this sort of losing streak is exacerbated by the fact that the Yankees aren’t losing RIGHT NOW combined with the sinking feeling that they will NEVER LOSE AGAIN. For serious control-freak fans (sigh—that would be me), it’s exacerbated even more by the fact that I CAN’T DO A FUCKING THING ABOUT IT; all I can do is stand by and watch. Oh, and two other things. One is to remind myself that we owned first place less than a week ago, and are now three games out of it. The other is to try and find that Stephen Crane poem where theguy says he likes what he’s eating because it’s bitter, and because it is his heart.

Stop that and stay upbeat, I tell myself. This is not impossible or even that hard to do on a beautiful June morning with the grandchildren on the way. It’s a long season, after all, and September is the only month where a losing streak can absolutely kill you, and only then if it’s combined with the wrong team’s winning streak.

Besides, I have to think of Stewart, who stayed up until maybe two in the morning to watch one of those awful games with the Angels where we blew the lead in the late innings. Man, I haven’t even dared e-mail him about that. As for tonight, I have my choice: the new Harry Potter movie, or the Red Sox. If my older son actually does make the scene with the grandkids, I think I’ll let him decide.

Who says I’m a control freak?

Later: The headline of this morning’s Sox story in the Lewiston Daily Sun reads: GOBBLE FEASTS ON SOX. Hours later, while Peggy Noonan is getting all misty about the passing of Ronald Reagan on CNBC, I think, GOBBLE FEASTS ON SOX, and I crack up all over again.

When you’re losing, you take your chuckles wherever you can get them.