This is when the Red Sox would miss him, of course. This is when the absence of Jonathan Papelbon would haunt them the most. This is when Terry Francona trusts Papelbon as much as any manager trusts any pitcher in baseball, when the competition intensifies and the games take on additional meaning.

The Red Sox opened an important three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays with an 8-4 win in the juice box known as Tropicana Field last night, and the final score suggests a victory easier than it really was. The Sox held a 7-2 advantage when Francona summoned Hideki Okajima for the bottom of the eighth, when an apparent blowout victory started to get slippery. Okajima faced five batters, allowing four hits and a walk, and the next thing you knew it was a 7-4 game with the bases loaded and nobody out.

That is when Francona summoned Papelbon for the first two-inning save of the closer’s career, an event that served as a timely reminder of just who Papelbon is and what he means to the Red Sox.

"You get his best stuff in those situations," Francona later told reporters of his closer. "He’s able to still execute all of his pitches because he throws strikes. He’s really good, but you get the best of him in those situations."

The Red Sox seemingly have a lot of elements in their favor as they continue to angle towards October, so maybe it is time to remember perhaps the single best thing they have going for them: Their closer is virtually bulletproof in big games. Among major league pitchers in with at least 285 innings pitched -- Papelbon now has 287.2 -- Papelbon has the third-lowest ERA in history behind only Al Spalding and Ed Walsh, neither of whom pitched after 1917. As we all know, the baseballs used in games back them might as well have been beanbags.

And then there is this: Papelbon has never allowed a run in the playoffs. Among pitchers with at least 25 career postseason innings, Papelbon has both the lowest ERA in history, a number that just happens to match the grade point average of one John Blutarsky: Zero point zero zero. When the going gets tough . . . the tough get going.

Bluto comes with some flaws; everyone does. In the midst of the Billy Wagner flap, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein made the surprising, amusing and spot-on remark that Papelbon isn’t exactly "a Rhodes Scholar." With regard to closing, maybe that is an asset. During his brilliant career, Papelbon frequently has pitched as if entirely unaware that defeat was a possibility. He is nothing short of a baseball Green Beret, an entirely fearless and skilled combatant who embraces true confrontation. When people like Francona speak of players who like to "compete," they are talking about men like Papelbon.

Lest there be any doubt, Francona, too, is more competitive than many assume. The Red Sox entered last night’s game with a four-game lead over the Texas Rangers and five-game lead over the Rays in the American League wild card race, and yet the Sox treated the series with a certain urgency. Over the weekend, the Sox shuffled their pitching to get last night’s starter, Jon Lester, into the series. Even with Lester on the mound, Francona chose Victor Martinez as his starting catcher. Then he relied on Papelbon for six outs in a save situation, something that has not happened here since Papelbon became the closer at the start of the 2006 season.

The Red Sox took this game seriously. They sure did. And with one or two more wins over the next two nights, they could effectively crush Tampa Bay’s windpipe. In the process, they might even pick up a little more ground on the Texas Rangers.

For Papelbon, last night was important in so many ways. Roughly a week after he questioned whether Wagner could help at all, let the record show that Wagner pitched a scoreless, dominating seventh before Papelbon recorded the final six outs. Okajima may have struggled in between, but Wagner and Papelbon collectively faced nine batters and struck out five. They did not allow a baserunner. Together, they threw first-pitch strikes to seven batters on what effectively amounted to one trip through the Tampa lineup, and they threw 29 of 41 pitches for strikes.

In the words of Dick Vitale: Totally awesome, baby, with a capital A.

This year more than any other, Papelbon has shown his mortality. The walks and homers are up; his fastball hasn’t had quite the same explosiveness. The rapid ascension of Daniel Bard has perhaps given the Sox and their followers a glimpse at the future, and there has been some speculation throughout the game that Papelbon could be available by trade as early as the approaching offseason. The Red Sox still have Papelbon under their control through the 2011 campaign -- he is eligible only for arbitration until then -- and the general history of closers suggests that they are more like meteors than stationary stars, the kind of floating bodies around which teams cannot plot their direction.

And yet, last night, Jonathan Papelbon issued us all a reminder:

As you look up at that same sky, be careful what you wish for.