Playing nine innings while wondering if Clay Buchholz's bizarre habit of throwing to first base at unnecessary times is some sort of tribute to Matt Young . . .

1. Despite losing two of three this weekend and six of their last seven matchups with the Yankees overall, I still feel oddly confident in the Sox' chances.

Why? Here's why: A.J. Burnett, No. 2 starter, all-time enigma. He's 33 years old, is as unhittable as any pitcher in the big leagues when he's on and interested, and yet he still carries himself like Nuke LaLoosh's petulant kid brother. In fact, I'm pretty sure this conversation actually occurred on the Fenway mound sometime around the second inning Saturday:

Burnett:[to himself]: Why's he calling for a curve ball? I want to bring heat. Shake him off. Throw what you want. [Posada gives Burnett the sign for the pitch, Burnett shakes his head again. Posada and his ears walk to the mound.]

Posada: Why are you shaking me off?

Burnett: I want to bring the heater. Announce my presence with authority.

Posada: To announce what?

Burnett: My presence with authority.

Posada: To announce your presence with authority?! This guy's a first ball fastball hitter, looking for the heat.

Burnett: So what? He ain't seen my heat.

Posada: All right, Meat. Give him your heat. [He walks back to his place behind the plate, muttering something about Carl Pavano.]

Burnett: Why's that big-eared guy always calling me Meat? I'm the guy driving a Porsche.

Posada: [to Kevin Youkilis, standing at the plate] Fastball.

[Burnett delivers. Youkilis crushes a home run, pausing to admire it.]

Posada: What are you doing standing here? I gave you a gift. You stand here showing up my pitcher? Run, dummy, or I'll have Chamberlain stick one in your ear.

Yes, that went on way too long, and yes, Burnett actually wanted to throw his curveball more. But other than that minor factual alteration, I am absolutely sticking to my story. With that indulgence out of the way, on to real baseball matters . . .

2. No, I don't think Josh Beckett is injured. I think he's had two lousy starts in a row, the first because he had to pitch to Victor Martinez, and the second because he hadn't recovered from the trauma of having to pitch to Victor Martinez. (Now that the Tek Army loyalists have nodded their heads and moved along to their dream-filled days of ice cream, unicorns, and squared-jawed catchers with brush-cut hairdos who can hit .250, let's try to come up with a sensible reason why Beckett has done the Wasdin thing over his last two starts after about two months of dominant pitching.) And look! Here's one, courtesy of Buster Olney, who suggests on ESPN Insider blog that the Yankees may have solved Beckett's pitching pattern entering Sunday's game.

The Yankees' home run data from Sunday night showed a definite trend in how to approach Beckett -- look for a first-pitch fastball, then curveball with two strikes. Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui's leadoff homers in the first and second innings were both off fastballs. Robinson Cano and A-Rod later followed with homers off two-strike curveballs. This proved to be a great approach: Beckett threw 25 of 33 first-pitch fastballs (76 percent versus 59 percent overall). Beckett threw curveballs in eight of 18 of at-bats that reached.

This proved to be a great approach. Olney's not one for hyperbole, is he? Someone with the Yankees deserves kudos for cracking the code and allowing the Yankees to hammer a legitimate Cy Young candidate. Conversely, how come the Red Sox seemed to be so complacent in their pitch selection? I realize Beckett can be stubborn -- something tells me he'd like throwing to Posada about as much as Burnett does -- but if you don't mix it up, at some point, an advance scout is going to catch on. You'd think John Farrell and, yes, Varitek, would be aware of this, though I'd be curious to know if the pitching pattern was the same when Beckett threw to Martinez in his previous start at Toronto.

3. Mike Lowell since the All-Star break: .366 batting average, .591 slugging, 1.016 OPS, five homers and 21 RBIs in 93 at-bats. I believe the extra rest has helped him to a degree -- he does seem to be moving laterally better in the field -- but I bet he'd tell you that the numbers are the best evidence yet that he should be playing every day. At this point, I tend to see it his way, if only because the Sox lineup is so much deeper when Lowell and David Ortiz are a part of it.

4. By conventional statistical measures, Jacoby Ellsbury is having a pretty decent second full season in the big leagues. He's hovering around a .300 batting average (.294) at the moment, he plays a borderline Gold Glove center field, and with his next stolen base will break the club record that has been held since 1973, when Tommy Harper swiped 53. But a glance at his baseball-reference page leaves you with one fundamental conclusion: He's been almost the same exact mediocre player he was last season. His adjusted OPS is 87, the same as it was during his rookie season, and lower than Jason Varitek's and David Ortiz's this season. His on-base percentage is up .004 from a season ago, and his OPS is just .010 higher. Really, the only statistical changes are that he will probably score few runs, and he'll strike out less often. Not exactly the leap in production we were hoping from him in Year 2. He's going to be 26 in two weeks. It might be time to start wondering if what you see is what you are going to get with him.

5. I've been doing my best to not allow eight mostly brutal starts with the Red Sox alter my appreciation of John Smoltz's 20 mostly admirable seasons with the Atlanta Braves. So far, so good, though I have to admit it was intensely aggravating to watch him go out and dominate the Padres Saturday as if he'd suddenly discovered the fountain of youth beneath the Gateway Arch. Though the Padres have an offense that would probably finish in the middle of the pack in the Atlantic League, Smoltz, who whiffed nine in five scoreless innings, did look like the pitcher the Sox thought they were getting when they signed him back in January. He looked liked someone truly capable of contributing to a pitching staff through October, and only adding to a Sox fan's frustration was the implication during the game, when the Cardinals announcers were fawning over Yadier Molina and Dave Duncan's work with Smoltz, and afterward, when the Cardinals claimed that Chris Carpenter immediately noticed that Smoltz was tipping his pitches during a bullpen session. The Sox deny this, but if the Cardinals are right, shouldn't John Farrell and a certain catcher with all of those alleged intangibles have picked up on this at some point? Or have we blamed them for enough already today? It would go a long way toward explaining why opposing batters hit Smoltz like they knew what was coming, though I'm not sure I entirely buy it. The Cardinals like to be the smartest guys in the room, and Smoltz's batting-practice fastball didn't help his cause here Boston, either.