The free agent season now commences in earnest, so let the games begin. Last year, on the first day of bidding, the Red Sox presented Mark Teixeira with a six-year, $120-million offer. Several weeks later, Teixeira signed an eight-year, $180 million deal with the New York Yankees to conclude a shopping spree like no other in baseball history.

As much as the 2009 baseball season was settled on the field last summer, one could just as easily argue that the World Series was decided in November and December.

For the Red Sox, the work this offseason obviously begins with Jason Bay, whose free agent status leaves a sizable hole in the Boston lineup and outfield. For all of the attention placed on reports yesterday that Bay had rejected a four-year, $60 million contract from the team, representatives for the Sox and Bay long ago decided that the player was going to test the market. According to a reliable baseball source, the truth is that the Sox offered Bay a four-year contract as far back as the All-Star break, and there was simply no way that Bay was going to sign with the Sox before opening himself up to bids from other teams.

Given that fact, here are some things you should keep in mind over the next several weeks.

There was plenty to talk about. The transcript of Wednesday's chat appears below.

At this moment, there is positively no joy in Mudville. The perpetual march to one championship or another has been at least momentarily derailed from earth to ice, questions now dotting the four seasons like newly fallen leaves.

Take solace, Bill Belichick. Your team is not the only one dealing with issues at the moment. The Bruins, Celtics and Red Sox are right there beside you, albeit in varying states of concern. Dating back to October, all four of Boston’s title contenders have introduced new doubt about their ability to win another championship, the issues currently aligning in such fashion that we cannot help but come to an obvious conclusion.

These have been truly unique times in Boston sports. To a large degree, we all have been very spoiled. And sooner or later, the good times will end.

Survey: Which Boston team will win the next championship?

The Bruins have lost their last two games, the latter a 4-1 defeat to a wretched New York Islanders team on Monday night at the TD Garden. That loss came 48 hours after the B’s self-destructed in an overtime loss at Pittsburgh that, incredibly, was only the second-most crushing Boston loss of the weekend. Asked if he was ticked off by Monday’s loss on a local radio interview yesterday, Bruins vice president Cam Neely answered in the affirmative.

Clearly, B’s officials are starting to get agitated with the team’s lackluster start, which puts them 11th among the 15 Eastern Conference teams about a quarter of the way into the NHL season.

"Tonight is one of those games where you can look at the stats, take those stats, and throw them in the garbage," coach Claude Julien told reporters after the loss to the Islanders. "We’re almost 70 percent on draws. We outshoot them. Big deal. They were still the better team because they wanted it more than we did. It’s as simple as that. That’s something that, at one point, we didn’t accept, and we did something about it. Hopefully, in the very, very near future, we’re going to turn that kind of thing around."

The Bruins still have plenty of time to turn things around this season. They have had an array of injuries to their top players. Still, one cannot help but wonder if the Bruins are on cruise control, a worrisome development for a team that must win on desire as much as talent. Already, the Bruins have nearly as many home losses (five) as they did all of last season (six).

The Celtics have lost their last two games, the most recent a 113-104 defeat to the Indiana Pacers in which the Celtics were outscored by 18 points in the second half. In that game, the Pacers shot a whopping 52.6 percent from the floor. In consecutive defeats to the Atlanta Hawks and Pacers, the Celtics looked slow and vulnerable against younger and more athletic teams, igniting smoldering concerns about their age.

At the moment, nobody is suggesting that the Celtics can win 70 games anymore. They are pace for precisely 59.6 victories. Now 8-3, the Celtics did not suffer their third defeat last year until Christmas. In 2007-08, their last championship year, the Celtics did not lose for a third time until Dec. 19.

"I thought, obviously, through training camp and the first few games, we got off to a great defensive start," coach Doc Rivers told reporters recently. "And I think we thought it was going to be easy from that point on, and it hasn’t been."

Added the coach of his team’s recent lapses, "That’s not anything that’s alarming but I know to be great we have to be a 48-minute team. Right now, we’re just not. We go in and out, so that’s just something we’ve got to improve on."

The quest begins tonight, at home against Golden State.

The Red Sox lost their last three games of the season, the finale in a back-breaking fashion that made Sunday’s loss by the Patriots feel like a tickle in the throat. In getting swept by the Los Angeles Angels in the American League Division Series, the Red Sox batted a collective .158 and were outscored, 16-7. In the Game 3 meltdown, the Sox held leads of 5-2 and 6-4 in the final two innings before their season collapsed on them.

With the free agency filing period due to end tomorrow, the Red Sox are without a left fielder and shortstop. Designated hitter David Ortiz and third baseman Mike Lowell are both entering the final year of their contracts, and the Sox appear on the cusp of a major overhaul. Between now and next fall, the core of the Sox could be transplanted.

For now, the 2010 season looks like it could be a lean year. Thus far, Theo Epstein’s tenure as general manager seems to have run in three- or four-year cycles, depending on where one draws the line. For instance, from 2003-05, the Sox made the playoffs all three years, winning one world title (2004) while suffering losses in both the League Championship Series (2003, seven games) and ALDS (2005, three-game sweep). In 2006, they finished third. From 2007-09, the Sox won another world title (2007) while suffering losses in both the ALCS (2008, seven games) and ALDS (2009, three-game sweep).

Entering 2010, does anyone else see a pattern here?

The Patriots lost their last game, a spine-crushing, mind-numbing defeat that defied all laws of probability and logic while shredding the air of invincibility that has forever surrounded their coach. The defeat was just as damaging statistically as emotionally, dealing a major blow to the Pats’ chances for a playoff bye and home-field advantage in the postseason. Their Super Bowl hopes took a major hit.

For as much criticism as Belichick has taken in recent days regarding his questionable decision-making on Sunday night, the greater concern may be his apparent loss of faith in defensive football. In the last three seasons, Belichick seems to have put a disproportional amount of faith in his offense. Since Oct. 1 of last year, the Patriots have won just two games when scoring fewer than 23 points, both vs. the Buffalo Bills, one of them a 13-0 decision played in absurdly high winds.

As such, the question really isn’t whether the Pats can stop anyone anymore. The question is whether their coach believes they can.

This week, oddly enough, the Pats will encounter a defense-oriented team in the New York Jets, who won by a 16-9 score in the last meeting between the teams in Week 2. For Belichick and his players, the game is now a must-win given a scheduled trip next week to New Orleans, another offensive powerhouse that plays indoors.

In New England, all across the board, the time has come to stem the tide.

"Obviously, from a coaching standpoint, there’s always a lot of things you could have done better. . . . We’ve got to do a better job, starting with me."
-- Bill Belichick, shortly after noon today.

FOXBOROUGH -- Bill Belichick says something like this after most every loss, of course, but most times we just gloss over it. We usually take it as nothing more than politically correct mumble-babble from the distinguished coach of the Patriots, a man frequently accused of acting as if he is smarter than everyone else and a man who usually is.

But today, in the wake of the Patriots’ implosive 35-34 loss to the Indianapolis Colts last night at Lucas Oil Stadium, the most blindly loyal Belichicklets find themselves in the ultimate conundrum. By agreeing with the coach’s assessment today, they effectively indict him, too. The Patriots played an absolute whale of a game last night against the unbeaten Colts, and the simple truth is that their coach cut the legs out from under them by defying the kind of football fundamentals taught in Pigskin 101.

"I tell the team -- and I think they believe - that I do everything I can every game to win the game," Belichick said this morning at Gillette Stadium. "I hope everybody understands that."

Oh, we all do. But we must all wonder now if Belichick is a man who has no respect at all for the game or the opposition, or if he is a man who has too much. On the one hand, Belichick went for it on a fourth and 2 from his own 28-yard line last night, almost as if failing to acknowledge the existence of an opposing defense. On the other, a man once heralded as one of the great defensive masterminds in NFL history seems to have lost all confidence in his ability to stop Peyton Manning from going 70 yards in two minutes with no timeouts.

A paradox? You bet it is . . . which is just the way Belichick likes it. He likes to keep you guessing, which was NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth’s assessment when the Patriots offense lined up for that fourth and 2 last night, much to the surprise of most everyone locked in to "Football Night in America." The problem is that Belichick’s recent coaching history is dotted with as many such failures than successes, particularly in big games.

In Super Bowl XLII, the Patriots faced fourth and 13 from the New York Giants’ 31-yard line with 6:49 remaining in the third quarter. The Pats led 7-3. Despite the fact that the game was being played indoors, Belichick passed on a 48- or 49-yard field-goal attempt by kicker Stephen Gostkowski that might have given the Pats a 10-3 edge, ultimately turning the ball over on downs when Tom Brady threw an incompletion on a pass intended for Jabar Gaffney.

Had the Pats missed the kick, the Giants would have gained possession on the 38- or 39-yard line. As it was, New York took over possession on the 31. For those seven or eight yards, Belichick entirely passed on the opportunity to score three points, a decision that should have come under far more scrutiny than it did for being downright arrogant. After all, those three points proved to be the margin of defeat.

Really, isn’t that what we’re talking about here? This is football. There are two teams on the field. But Belichick has become so downright obsessed and cocky with his offense that the Patriots can’t seem to win big games anymore, mostly because they play as if they're trying to win a shootout. Faced with the prospect of possibly making an opponent go virtually the length of the field without any timeouts -- or of giving them the ball at his own 29-yard line with two minutes to go -- Belichick chose the latter last night. It was as if the prospect of getting stopped never even occurred to him.

As a result, today’s national assessments of Belichick’s coaching decision contained rather frequent use of the word hubris, a term easiest to define in this way: it’s when mortals begin to act with the recklessness of the gods, as if there is absolutely no consequence for their actions.

Seriously, ask yourselves this today: what if Pete Carroll had made the same decision Belichick made last night? Eric Mangini? Wade Phillips? Some people might be going so far as to call for the removal of those coaches, which no one is suggesting here. But were it not for Belichick’s pedigree and résumé, we would seriously be wondering today if the man had lost his marbles and was competent to stand trial.

If you don’t want to believe the members of the local media, then believe Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi, who openly criticized Belichick’s decision-making.

"Everybody’s entitled to their opinion out there,’’ Belichick said. "I respect that.’’

As for how the Patriots respond to all this, there is no way to know for sure. The damage done to their season last night was considerable. With a win, the Pats would have been in the driver’s seat for a first-round bye and would have had a far better chance of hosting the Colts if the two meet in the playoffs. Now, all of that is in great doubt. For all of the questions the Patriots had entering this season, they might have woken up today as Super Bowl favorites.

Instead, they remain a team with flaws and questions.

And their coach is now one of them.

In a place like Massachusetts, where fairness and liberal thinking are embraced, Peyton Manning must be defended. Even now. Even on the eve of the biggest football game of the year.

In the considerable and extraordinary history of Boston sports, we have had this kind of debate before, of course. Williams or DiMaggio? Munson or Fisk? Larry or Magic? And so now we are the midst of perhaps the consummate either/or, a debate involving two of the greatest quarterbacks in league history, a question to which there is truly no wrong answer.

Brady or Manning?

Click here to read the full debate between myself and Chris Gasper.

For the Black n’ Gold, the simplest precedent comes in black and white. A year ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins effectively sleepwalked through the first four and half months of the NHL season. Today, they are the reigning Stanley Cup champions.

Get the picture?

"You can write the story of a season a lot of different ways," Pittsburgh wonderboy Sidney Crosby said yesterday morning at the TD Garden before the Bruins shut out the Penguins, 3-0. "It’s not October and November or March and April. It’s a season. It’s a long road and you’re going to face tough times sometimes. Maybe you’re better off facing them early."

No analogy is perfect, of course, and the obvious truth is that there are significant differences between these Bruins and those Penguins, who were a mediocre 27-25-5 on Feb. 15 of last season. For starters, those Pens had Crosby. They had Evgeni Malkin, Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz, and the last two proved critical after being acquired just before the trading deadline. Then there was the cataclysm that was the firing of head coach Michel Therrien, the man who had taken the Pens to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2007-08.

Following Therrien’s dismissal, the Penguins went a sterling 18-3-4 in their final 25 regular season games, going from an also-ran to fourth place in the Eastern Conference. Pittsburgh then needed 24 more games to hoist the Cup – six, seven, four, seven – completing a dramatic story that unfolded over the span of nearly nine months.

Crosby himself left no doubt when asked to identify the pivotal moment of that Penguins season.

"The coaching change," said The Kid, referring to the upheaval that led to the hiring of Dan Bylsma. "That was kind of our last-ditch effort. We knew we didn’t have a lot of time."

So here we are now, amid the most hyped Boston hockey season in years, and one cannot help but wonder if New England should find great solace in the words of a 22-year-old sage. You can write the story of a season a lot of different ways. Last night’s win over the Penguins gave the Bruins back-to-back victories for the first time this season, an astonishingly modest achievement for a club that finished first in the Eastern Conference a year ago. At various points this year, the Bruins have suffered from injury and ineptitude. At the worst moments, they have suffered from both.

Let’s make this clear: barring an entirely shocking development, head coach Claude Julien isn’t going anywhere. For one thing, Julien is the reigning Jack Adams Award winner as Coach of the Year. For another, the Bruins rewarded him with a contract extension before the season began. If these Bruins are indeed destined to win the Stanley Cup this season, they will have to write the story of their season in a different way than those Pens.

Still, the Bruins would be fools for failing to recognize that the reigning Stanley Cup champions plodded through the first half (and then some) of last season as if bored, complacent or both.

"We have talked about that, about how Pittsburgh did just that," Bruins vice president Cam Neely said yesterday afternoon during his weekly appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub. "They didn’t start the season very well … and they won the Cup."

Does that ensure that these Bruins can do the same? Of course not. What it does mean, however, is the early stages of this Bruins season should in no way be seen as a barometer of things to come. Before last night, the Bruins played a recent stretch of games without Marc Savard, David Krejci and Milan Lucic. Factor in the absence of Phil Kessel, who was traded to Toronto, and the result was that entire first line from last season was entirely erased from the mix. The Bruins went nearly three full games without scoring a goal, and they went a preposterous 0 for 20 on the misnamed power play.

Whether those problems will persist in the spring is certainly open to debate, but in the interim, know this: Lucic is aiming to be back in slightly more than a week. Savard may not be much further behind. Meanwhile, the Bruins have allowed seven goals in their last seven regulation games, and general manager Peter Chiarelli has made it clear that he intends to use a cache of bargaining chips to fortify the roster through trade before the deadline. As a result of the Kessel trade, Chiarelli has piled up more draft picks than Bill Belichick, meaning that a Guerin or a Kunitz (or both) appear to be in the Bruins’ future.

Certainly, the Bruins would have preferred an easier, smoother path to their first Cup since the Nixon administration. But then, the Penguins probably felt the same way last season.

"We’ve got to make sure we don’t make it like that every year," Crosby mused.

But ultimately, we’re willing to bet that all he really cares about is a happy ending.

FOXBOROUGH -- As surely as the Mass Pike intersects Route 128, the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts remain on a collision course. And as 8-0 meets 6-2 this week in the American heartland, let there be no doubt that the Patriots have more at stake.

"We always enjoy playing them. They’re a great team,’’ Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s 27-17 win over the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium. "They seem to always be one of the best teams in the league and they’re good in all three [phases], very well-coached. It will be a great challenge for us. We’re 1-2 on the road this year, so we’ve got to go try to play our best game.’’

Indeed they do. Superiority in the AFC and yet another trip to the Super Bowl may depend on it.

For the moment, let’s give the Patriots their due in the wake of a win over the well-coached, pesky and resilient Dolphins. Anyone who projected this game to be a cakewalk hasn’t been paying attention. And while the AFC East is now firmly in the grasp of the Patriots, we all know that nobody in New England is particularly interested in building footbridges to the division championship.

Here, we generally focus on far more meaningful projects.

In yesterday’s win, the Patriots got 82 yards from Laurence Maroney (averaging slightly better than five yards a carry in his last three games) and big plays across the board on defense, from an awakened Adalius Thomas to an unleashed Patrick (The Missile) Chung. Bill Belichick’s latest game plan called for Vince Wilfork to play defensive end -- who needs Richard Seymour? -- with Mike Wright in the middle, and saw the coach continue to thrust more and more responsibility on some young defensive backs who have no reservations about putting their heads down.

"It’s not always perfect and he doesn’t always do everything exactly the way you want it done, but at the end of the play he makes a bunch of tackles and he’s got his guy covered, and he basically ends up being a productive player,’’ Belichick said of Chung, who plays safety like a reckless SCUD. "Patrick works extremely hard. He’s in here early, he stays late -- kind of like [Jerod] Mayo and [Gary] Guyton were last year. He really puts a lot into it. Football’s real important to him and he’s continued to get better on the practice field, both in the kicking game and defensively, and he’s taken advantage of the opportunities he’s gotten. Anybody that works that hard and has that kind of ability he has, I think he’s going to continue to improve. It means a lot to him.’’

And it shows.

This week, of course, Chung and Company will face the most difficult task of their season to date in the Colts and Manning, who is on pace for an NFL-record 5,090 passing yards. In recent years, especially, holding down the Colts has not been realistic goal for the Patriots. The ultimate question this week is whether they can contain Manning enough to emerge with what would amount to New England’s first road victory of the season -- sorry, Tampa doesn’t count -- particularly as the Colts operate with a makeshift secondary devoid of safety Bob Sanders and defensive back Marlin Jackson, among others.

On paper, at the moment, this looks to be a relatively high-scoring and even game. All of that only makes it more critical for the Pats to establish a foothold among the truly elite teams in the conference.

Let’s be honest, folks. A bye and/or home field advantage in the postseason makes all the difference in the world. During Tom Brady’s tenure as starting quarterback, the Pats are 8-0 in home playoff games, 3-2 on the road (including 1-2 in the last three). The last time New England played a postseason game on the road was the 2007 AFC Championship Game, when it self-destructed in the second half of a loss at Indianapolis. In Brady’s last three postseason road games, he has thrown four touchdowns and six interceptions while posting quarterbacks ratings of, in order: 74.0 (loss at Denver, 2006), 57.6 (gift win at San Diego, 2007) and 79.5 (loss at Indy, 2007).

Because of that, and because the Pats are currently doing the chasing, this weekend’s game is of the utmost importance to their championship hopes. With a win, Indy would improve to 9-0 while the Pats would be 6-3, and the Colts would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker. A Patriots win would makes the teams a respective 8-1 and 7-2 with New England holding the tie-breaking edge. With seven subsequent games remaining for each club, the second scenario allows the Pats a very realistic chance of finishing ahead of the Colts by season’s end, meaning New England would be in far better position for a bye or home field.

This week, rest assured that the Patriots and Colts will be dissected and analyzed from every angle and cross-section, from the matchup between Belichick and Jim Caldwell, to Brady and Manning, to Reggie Wayne and Randy Moss. In the NFL, given the history of this decade, there is currently no better rivalry. More often than not, the road to the Super Bowl travels through the junction of Indianapolis and Foxborough, no matter which direction you’re approaching from.

"We're heading into the teeth of our schedule,’" quarterback Peyton Manning told reporters yesterday after the Colts escaped with a 20-17 win over the upstart Houston Texans.

Not so coincidentally, so are the Patriots.

Whom should the Sox pursue this offseason? Review the possibilities and vote.

Now begins the intriguing case of Jason Bay, a man whose contract negotiations with the Red Sox are, in some ways, unprecedented. Players have continued to come and go during the current Red Sox administration. Yet now the Sox are faced, perhaps for the first time, with a potential fight for a player they truly want to keep.

One day after the 2009 World Series concluded, baseball’s offseason officially began yesterday with the first day of the free agency filing process. Bay was one of the players who immediately declared his freedom. Most everyone agrees that Bay and outfielder Matt Holliday (who also filed) are the best positional players available on the market this offseason, and both are obvious fits for a Sox club that has both a gaping hole in left field to go along with a gaping hole in the middle of the lineup.

The questions today are the same questions that have existed throughout Bay’s tenure in Boston, during which Bay has led the Red Sox in home runs and RBI while finishing second in runs scored and OPS.

How much is he worth on the open market?

Will the Red Sox be willing to pay it given the manner in which they have approached free agency during the last seven years?

During the tenure of general manager Theo Epstein, three free-agent pursuits stand out above all others: J.D. Drew, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Mark Teixeira. Beyond that trio, the Red Sox generally have not offered any player more than a four-year deal in the range of $40-$50 million. The Sox have shown a willingness to spend big only when their preferred factors were in complete alignment, and in those cases they were at least willing to blow most everyone out of the water.

In the case of Teixeira, the Sox obviously lost out to the New York Yankees, but that’s not the point. The club still offered him the biggest contract in club history. At the time, Teixeira was a 28-year-old, switch-hitting, two-time Gold Glove winner who could hit for average and power. In terms of long-term investments, he was about as safe it gets. No one should be surprised that this Red Sox administration was willing to go to unprecedented lengths (for them) to secure his talents.

Matsuzaka, meanwhile, came with greater risk given that he had never played in the major leagues, but the other factors were otherwise in alignment. He was 26 when the Red Sox invested $103 million in him over six years. Technically speaking, Matsuzaka is on the Red Sox payroll for an average of $8.67 million per year from 2007-2012, but the $51.11 million posting fee was absolutely part of the cost for him. The reality is that the Matsuzaka deal cost the Red Sox an average of $17.17 million per year.

All of this brings us to Drew, who is easily the most comparable case to Bay given that both are corner outfielders. Following the 2006 season, Drew was precisely the same age (31) that Bay is now. The Red Sox gave him a five-year, $70 million contract that opened eyes through the baseball world and that Epstein still is defending. In late September, Epstein invited discussion on Drew on 98.5 The Sports Hub, pointing out that Drew had "the second-highest OPS" among all American League outfielders, a particularly relevant characterization given who finished the year ranking first.

That would be Bay.

Here’s the other reason the Red Sox valued Drew: defense, an area in which Bay is, on the whole, mediocre, and also one on which the Sox are likely to place undue emphasis (some media types are already taking the bait on this) for the purposes of driving down the price. But then, negotiations are all about leverage. Drew’s ability to play right field at Fenway Park – one of the bigger areas in baseball – prompted Epstein to suggest last winter that Drew had greater value to the Sox than he did to other teams, and whether one agrees with the GM is irrelevant. The important thing to remember is that the Red Sox have certain philosophies and formulas that they believe in, and they have shown a willingness to pay for it when their criteria are met.

With regard to Bay, part of the problem is that the Sox don’t appear to have any better options to replace him, be it through trade or free agency. They don’t have a hitter like him ready in their minor league system. Holliday would cost at least as much or more, and his brief stint in the AL (let alone Boston) left a great deal to be desired. A trade would require further forfeiture of young talent from a Sox system that has hit somewhat of a developmental hole, particularly after a flurry of necessary, in-season trades this year.

The bottom line is that the Red Sox seem backed into a corner here.

While representatives for Bay and the Sox have remained remarkable tight-lipped during negotiations that began last spring, it’s hard to imagine Bay settling for anything less than what the Sox awarded Drew, be it in years (again, five) or dollars ($70 million, an average of $14 million per). The likelihood is that Bay will command closer to $16-$18 million per year given his elite status on the market, which could place his final cost somewhere in the range of $80-$90 million over five years. (In case you’re wondering, that is purely an opinion.)

For what it’s worth, during his major league career as a starter (2004-09), Bay ranks in the top 10 of all major league outfielders in OPS, a statistic on which the Sox have placed great emphasis and in which Bay and Drew have been a virtual dead heat over the last six years. Bay beats Drew handily in games played (892-749), home runs (181-120), runs scored (564-497) and RBI (596-425), though the latter is a statistic, according to Epstein’s same radio interview, that the Sox generally discount entirely. Whether that disclosure is 100 percent fact or merely served as initial posturing for the Bay negotiations remains to be seen, largely because Bay’s representative (Joe Urbon) is not likely to deem his player’s run production irrelevant.

During Bay’s career as a starter, only five outfielders in the game have knocked in more runs: Carlos Lee, Manny Ramirez, Bobby Abreu, Vladimir Guerrero and Adam Dunn, the last of whom is a defensive sinkhole and whose recent free-agent contract (two years, $20 million) badly skews the data. All of the others, in the primes of their careers, earned average annual salaries between $15 million and $20 million.

Regardless, there is more pressure on the Sox to keep in Bay in Boston than there ever has been on them ever before, with possible of exception of Jason Varitek, who filed for free agency for the first time following the 2004 season. Even then, most everyone in baseball knew Varitek’s priority was to remain with the Sox – to the point where he all but spurned other suitors. In the other major free agency filings during the administration of John Henry, Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino and Epstein, the Sox either have happily let aging players depart (Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe, among others), traded them before the fact (Nomar Garciaparra, Manny Ramirez) or reluctantly re-signed them (Mike Lowell).

But Bay? The Red Sox want him and they need him.

We just don’t know if they’re going to pay him.

"In that game, he topped out at 86 mph. We had some pretty good hitters in our lineup and he took the bats out of our hands. After watching that, in that situation, there was no doubt in my mind that Pedro could pitch without the velocity."
-- Mike Hargrove, former manager of the Cleveland Indians, commenting earlier today on Pedro Martinez’s performance in Game 5 of the 1999 American League Division Series between the Red Sox and Indians.

Pedro Martinez was at the peak of his greatness then, his legend growing with every single pitch. Ten years have passed since a wounded Martinez came out of the bullpen that night at Jacobs Field and shut down the mighty Cleveland Indians. Five days later, as if to prove that the game was not a fluke, Martinez similarly mystified the eventual world champion New York Yankees, relying largely on guile.

And so, yet again, we all are reminded that the past is merely prologue.

Pedro goes to the mound for Game 6 of the World Series tonight at Yankee Stadium, and here is the absolute, indisputable truth as the baseball world focuses in on him yet again: He really hasn’t changed at all. For all of the recent talk that Pedro, now 38 years old, has reinvented himself, that he has morphed from the power pitcher of his prime to the craftsman of his age, he was always the most adaptable and versatile of tacticians. Martinez always had the mind of Maddux to go along with the arm of Marichal, a combination that ultimately made him the Koufax of his era.

"If you look at some of the games he pitched against us [in the late '90s], he went entire innings throwing nothing but changeups and breaking balls. It was almost like he was rubbing our face in it,’’ said Hargrove. "The great ones can do that.’’

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, who served as Hargrove's hitting coach on those Indians teams, explained to reporters yesterday how Pedro still gets it done. "First of all, he's got a tremendous feel to pitch. He knows how to pitch. He knows more about hitters than probably people give him credit for because he'll sit there and study the game, and he'll study the hitters and he'll sit there and talk to you sometimes. That's one thing I like about Pedro: he'll come over and talk to you, and he don't listen when you tell him how to pitch somebody, he'll tell you how he's going to pitch somebody.’’

And then Martinez executes the plan as if it were all so simple.

While acknowledging that there is simply no way to know how Martinez will perform tonight, the fact is that it does not really matter. Truth be told, Pedro probably should have been done already. Martinez was too small to hold up, as Tommy Lasorda warned years ago, and the Red Sox were convinced it was only a matter of time before his shoulder exploded. Between the warnings and the inevitability, Martinez built a Hall of Fame career and won three Cy Young awards. Now he is simply reaffirming the fact that he is one of the smartest pitchers of all-time in addition to being one of the most gifted.

Martinez was the losing pitcher in Game 2 of the World Series last week, but that was through no fault of his own. Even now, he can captivate a crowd like an aged McCartney can. Martinez threw 107 pitches in his Game 2 loss to loss New York, leaving the game with a 2-1 deficit in the seventh inning of an eventual 3-1 Yankees win. According to the game log on mlb.com, only four of Martinez’s pitches climbed as high as 90 mph. Pedro altered speeds -- he threw one curveball to Melky Cabrera that registered 67 mph -- and changed locations, making the Yankees often look as if they were trying to swat away bumble bees.

Said Hargrove, "He’s the kind of guy who, when he’s pitching against you, you just want to go out there with a bat and start beating on him. He can make you look that bad."

Said Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira to reporters yesterday, "You’re not going to out-think Pedro. He’s one of the smartest pitchers in baseball.’’

Ever.

All of this brings us back to October 1999, when Martinez all but told us then to prepare for what we are seeing now. His manager (Jimy Williams) and his pitching coach (Joe Kerrigan) outright predicted that Pedro would be able to pitch well beyond his prime. After Pedro's performance against the Indians in Game 5, his brother and teammate Ramon, a former flamethrower who had been forced to change his style after an injury, revealed a bit of advice he shared with his sibling: "I told him, 'You don't have your fastball so you have to use your head.' When you feel 100 percent you can go right through the hitters. When you're not 100 percent, you have to pitch, not just throw. Tonight, he pitched."

Did he ever. Combined, in Game 5 of the AL Division Series that year and Game 3 of the AL Championship Series, Martinez barely cracked 90 mph (if at all) thanks to a strained shoulder suffered in Game 1 of the ALDS. He worked mostly in the mid-to-high 80s. In those two games, against two of the most prolific lineups in baseball, Martinez pitched 13 scoreless innings and allowed just two hits, striking out 20 and walking five. His matchup against the Yankees and Roger Clemens was a first-round knockout. His blanking of the Indians triggered the firing of Hargrove and the subsequent hiring of Manuel.

Don’t you see? Manuel, too, recognized this all a long, long time ago, when Martinez changed his stripes without skipping a beat in the midst of one of the great pitching seasons of all-time. That is undoubtedly why he remains so confident in his righthander now. Martinez’s arm is not what it once was, but his mind has not diminished at all.

"He's got a tremendous feel for the game, and he's still got talent when he executes his pitches as a pitcher should,’’ Manuel said yesterday. "He's definitely capable of throwing a very good ballgame, a real good ballgame. I'd look for him to definitely put us in a place where we can win the game."

But then, regardless of whether Martinez had a fastball, we all knew that a long time ago.