PROCTOR ALERT We are back to the blown-out bullpen days of Joe Torre

Remember when Tanyon Sturtze, the human mobile home, was our only hope between the sixth and eighth innings? Remember Joe Torre, over and over, signaling for Mo in the eighth? Remember how those troubled Octobers always ended? "Murderers Row and then Cano," they called us... yet we couldn't overcome a bullpen in Joe Torre meltdown.

Well, God help us, we're there again. It's 2002-07, and Preston Claiborne is Scott "Torch the Equipment" Proctor. Just as Obama is turning into George W. Bush, Larry Rothschild is morphing into Billy Connor, and every seventh inning is Deep Fried Doomsday, straight from the State Fair.  Good grief, the only difference is that James Spader is now the size of a truck, and little kids go to bed at night terrified that Miley Cyrus' tongue will get them.

If we're lucky enough to have CC pitch into the seventh - it once was a certainty, now it's a treat - who gets the next nine outs? The ghost of Quan-Go-Mo?  For that matter - and let's be honest here - faith in Mariano is no longer scientifically justified. At this point, it's just a religious thing.  We set the sacred stones in place and hope the magic works. God help us.

But keep this is mind, folks, as we watch from behind the couch. The Redsock fans are terrified of us. Yes, terrified. They know we should be dead and mouldering in an unmarked grave. There is no way we should still be competing for a playoff - even that fraudulent, Bud Selig bobblehead version. The Boston fans are terrified of us. They know their team is running on Nitro cylinders three weeks ahead of schedule, that one of these days, their perfect closer is going to melt down, or clutch his elbow, and poof - it could be 2004 in reverse. The more savagely they beat us, the more terrified they are. In their minds, they are Nicole Kidman, and we are the bicyclist!

We are dead. We have been buried. We have officially nothing left to lose. The one-armed ghost of Scott Proctor is prowling the Yankee dugout. He's looking for lighter fluid. We need a spark, dammit. Does anybody have a spark?