All year we have sat on the edge of our seat as we come into the 9th inning with a slim lead. At Fenway the switch is flicked on the Dropkick Murphys and in swaggers Papelbon. They hand him the ball, he throws a few warm up pitches and then its on. Save time. However the drama of a save doesnt seem to be enough for young Paps as he seems to want every save to involve getting out of a bases loaded jam. Now I like a good drama as much as the next person but these do or die situations really do try your patience!

Now if you divide the 162 game season by 9 you get 18 games per "inning" (More maths!). And isnt it wonderful that 18 is easily divided by 3 "outs"? Now after this game is complete we have one more "out" to get in the 8th. With such a slim lead in the Wild Card race we are really look for a 9th inning save here. Now the 8th inning so far has been pretty damn shoddy to say the least, somewhere around Hideki Okajima's recent performances. Unfortunately the batters we face for the final out of the 8th are the Rays (trying to close the gap and take the wildcard from us) and the Angels (current ALW leaders) so it wont be easy. With recent struggles keeping Oki from being effective I say we need a Daniel Bard style effort here. Go hard and fast and blow them away.

Luckily the 9th inning of this season doesnt look as bad as it could, its definately no heart of the lineup (other than the Yankees) so other than maybe giving up a base hit to the Yanks hopefully we can strike the rest of the side and save this years Playoff hopes!