I haven’t been this apprehensive about a pitcher’s regular-season start since Dice-K premiered last April versus the Kansas City Royals. You can delude yourself into thinking the Red Sox will still be a World Series contender without a healthy Josh Beckett, but I’m not buying it. If Beckett can’t join Lester and Dice-K to pose a formidable postseason threesome, then the Red Sox will be fubar. I mean, do you really want to rely on Paul Byrd in October versus teams like the Angels and White Sox?

Josh Beckett has had a pedestrian season and has shown few flashes of his 2007 form, but I can’t foresee a successful Boston October without their 2007 postseason hero. Though we’ve still got a month to go before the playoffs begin, I have playoff-level apprehension about tonight’s start. If Beckett can throw a decent five innings (all that Tito’s asking), then my confidence in this team will rise precipitously. But if he gets jacked around like he did in his last start versus Toronto, we’ll have to wonder if he’s truly healthy. And let’s face it, the Red Sox aren’t going to win the World Series without a healthy Josh Beckett.

It’s one thing to make the playoffs. It’s something else entirely to have a team that’s built to win in October. 

A rotation built around Jon Lester and Dice-K Matsuzaka is built for the summer.

Did anyone else know Dustin Pedroia has been on a tear?

The Sox second baseman has been given high praise this remarkable past seven days. Fans and media experts are pegging him as AL MVP, the best second baseman in Red Sox history, a jockey…all kinds of labels. No question that the Sox little big man has been hotter than you starring in a Showtime After Dark series opposite Jessica Alba, Kelly Kapowski, and, I dunno, a runner up for Miss Alaska.

Here is Dustin’s last 7 games:

 I will take the first step out on that limb there and say that if you did that for a season, you would win the MVP, and they would probably elect you President of Earth. What would a full season look like if someone could manage to do that (I think Steve Nebraska played by Brendan Fraser in the movie "The Scout").

Only 46 homers isn’t unreal, but 417 hits should get the job done. So can Pedey hit .374 this season. If he stays on this tear for the final 23 games he will. Again, unlikely, but every time you think or say this guy can’t do something, he pulls it off. His final season numbers at the last week’s performance would end up looking like this:

Jonathan Papelbon joins Gary Tanguay and Michael Felger on Mohegan Sun’s Sports Tonight at 6:30pm on September 2nd to talk about several topics, including his increased workload this season and what Dustin Pedroia’s reaction should have been to Ozzie Guillen after the White Sox manager referred to him as a "jockey".

In his weekly web-only segment on Comcast SportsNet.com, Jonathan Papelbon answers your emails. This week, "Cinco Ocho" talks about changing his name like Chad Johnson did, his pregame ritual of killing a chicken, and his hair stylings.

To send Jonathan your email, click here and fill out the form on the right.

I usually enjoy Michael Silverman’s coverage of the Red Sox for the Boston Herald, but his column today — claiming the Red Sox will be failures if they don’t sweep the Orioles — is nonsensical gibberish. Let’s take a look and Read Between the Lines.

The Red Sox  have to sweep now.

Anything less against the woeful Baltimore Orioles will be not just a wasted opportunity but a waste of the time and energy for anyone involved with the next two games.

So if Pedroia hits for the cycle tonight and Jon Lester throws a perfect game, all will be lost if the Red Sox lose tomorrow’s closing set, even though they’re 3 games ahead in the wild card entering tonight’s action.

If the Sox can’t sweep, be doubtful about this team’s killer instinct.

Because the Orioles are defenseless rabbits.

Just before this series started, the Red Sox could not quite pull off a sweep after they jumped to a 2-0 lead against two of the better teams in the league, the Yankees, in the Bronx, and then the White Sox, at Fenway.

So if the Red Sox can only win two of three again, for the third series in a row, they’ll be unmasked as a team satisfied with winning 66 percent of their games.

There was some consolation in the fact the Sox lost Game 3 and still won a three-game series against two good teams. But anyone in the Red Sox clubhouse who can find consolation in simply a series win against the Orioles is not someone who should feel comfortable in that clubhouse.

One year after winning their first World Series title in 86 years, the Red Sox scuffled to reach the playoffs in 2005, holding off the Cleveland Indians to win the wild card spot. Their rotation was in such disarray as it entered the postseason that Matt Clement was called on to start Game One of the ALDS versus the White Sox. Clement was battered around and the Red Sox were soon swept in short order, their ineptitude highlighted by Tony Graffanino’s ball-through-the-wickets defense at second base.

I hate to say it, but this year’s Red Sox team reminds me of that 2005 squad, and not merely because both teams were defending World Champions.

Forget statistics like run differential for a moment, and just look at the team as it stands right now, with no Mike Lowell, no J.D. Drew, no Josh Beckett, and (yup, I’m gonna say it) no Curt Schilling. Last night the Red Sox were so dinged up (Youkilis was sick) that Dustin Pedroia was batting cleanup. Granted, he notched four hits for the second night in a row and has been scorching the ball of late, but if Pedroia is your big bat come October, well, it’ll be a short month.

But the problems extend beyond the constantly makeshift lineup. Michael Bowden, whose major league debut was decidedly underwhelming last night, might be relied on down the stretch. (Inside Edge gave him a C+ in last night’s start.) If so, I don’t share the same level of confidence of Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald, who wrote,

Dustin Pedroia has been on fire lately, and last night became the first Red Sox player since Wade Boggs in 1989 to have back-to-back four hit games. How hot is the Boston second baseman? So hot that White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen intentionally walked Pedroia with a runner on third and two outs Saturday night.

Guillen later explained his maneuver, dropping a hilarious backhanded compliment:

"I never thought I would walk a jockey," he said.

From most managers that’d be an insult. From Guillen, it’s practically endearing.

Kevin Youkilis likes to be "holding it" when he comes to the plate, as he explains in this awesome video from Red Socks Diaries.

Somewhere out there along the space time continuum, there exists a world where my parents almost never kissed and my best friend is a 60-year old weirdo named Doc. In this world, it is March 24, 2008, and I’ve just been given today’s newspaper.

Where I live, the season’s yet to start, but this is how it will play out. I see that with only a month left to play, the Red Sox are firmly in playoff contention. The year has been a success and here are the stats that absolutely blow my mind:

Kevin Youkilis is the team leader in average, home runs and RBI

Dustin Pedroia has as many stolen bases as Julio Lugo, more homers than Mike Lowell, more doubles than Papi and Tek combined and more at bats than any major leaguer other than Jose Reyes and Ichiro

Josh Beckett and Clay Buchholz have a combined 18 losses; Dice-K and Lester, a combined four.

And while we’re at it, players with more wins than Clay Buchholz: Lester, Wakefield, Beckett, Dice-K, Papelbon, Okajima, Aardsma, Masterson and Timlin.

JD Drew is eighth in the majotrs in On-Base Percentage.

The Red Sox are second in the American League in stolen bases but sixth in homers.

Jason Varitek and Jed Lowrie would have 36 and 32 RBI, respectively… in 108 and 52 games, respectively.

Varitek and Jason Bay have scored 32 and 22 runs, respectively… in 108 and 23 games, respectively.

Jonathan Papelbon talks with Gary Tanguay and Michael Felger on Mohegan Sun’s Sports Tonight on Aug 27th about a meeting with his bullpen mates, how the new additions have fit in, and his final games at Yankee Stadium. "Cinco Ocho" says it is a "love-hate" relationship with the New York faithful.