Thinking about omens

So, which is a worse omen? Having tonight's Red Sox/Rays game preempted by a rerun of the Steve Harvey Show or having an umpire leave the field with an injury?

Aside from having more sets of eyeballs pointed at a television with Steve Harvey on it than any other time in history, TBS resolved its issues on the standard and high definition sides of the equation and Chip Carey told us that he was very, very sorry several times.

I didn't really buy into any of the mea culpas.

The ongoing Josh Beckett storyline continues to boil to the surface every few batters tonight with his velocity down and the peeks into the dugout showing a mixture of pain and frustration. With a 15-minute delay resulting from the injury to umpire Derryl Cousins, Beckett is still in the game right now after giving up a home run to Jason Bartlett.

Call me crazy, but with a franchise that is antsy after Beckett stayed in too long in Game 2 of this series and still makes Grady Little references five years after a long night for Pedro Martinez in the Bronx, maybe Tito Francona could err on the side of caution one of these times.

There's an old philosophy - and I'm almost ashamed to admit that I believe it's featured in Tim McCarver's Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans - that managers need to make decisions on pitchers based on what they think they will do next and not what they have just done.

Judging by what we're seeing into the sixth inning in Florida, I think it's time to lean on that bullpen again. I'd prefer for this to be a bloody sock game that only serves to shore up Beckett's legacy as a post-season ace instead of the first verse in the ballad of Big Game James.

(Update: The Captain just drove Shields from the game with a solo shot in the sixth inning to put the Sox up 3-2.)

(Image taken for Siberian Baseball)