What can you do?
When you have the ability to use one of the worst relievers in major-league baseball for two straight innings in a pivotal division game, you gotta do it. You just gotta. And when that reliever, who has somehow pitched in 38 of your team’s 93 games this season, shows that he doesn’t have it in the second inning, you gotta wait until he loads the bases before you pull him. You just gotta.
That was the dilemma Terry Francona faced tonight when he let Bryan Shaw pitch the seventh and eighth inning with a comically long leash.