It will be difficult to accept losing Manny for losing Bay

Given the amount of protection he’ll have in his new lineup, Jason Bay could very well thrive in Boston. But as a friend told me shortly after the Red Sox dealt one of the five greatest right handed hitters in history, “it’s just hard to welcome in losing players.”

And until he proves otherwise, Bay is just that. The guy has played very few meaningful baseball games throughout his entire life unless you count the World Baseball Classic a few years ago. Before that, it was the Little League World Series and I’m sorry, Williamsport in August just isn’t Yankee Stadium in October.

It will be hard enough coming over from a place where 90 losses is routine and replacing a guy who helped transform the Red Sox into a model franchise, but what makes it worse is that Bay comes to Boston knowing that everyone agrees that the Yankees, Angels and White Sox all got better this week, while the Red Sox got worse.

Of course that may not be completely true. Some will argue that, given everything that has happened, Bay is better for the Red Sox than Manny Ramirez. And when another friend asked how much of a difference protection in a lineup makes, my simple answer was this: It’s the difference between you knowing who Jason Bay is and not knowing who he is.

Unfortunately, that losing stigma just seems to stick out more than anything right now. It’s likely he’ll face similar backlash to what J.D. Drew dealt with all of last season. Of course, Drew responded with an excellent post season that led to a World Series ring.

And winning is all it comes down to in places like Boston. Just ask Drew. Just ask Paul Pierce. Bay might not hit like Manny, but he better win like him.

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Random Rumblings: Time for the Rays to get serious

• Maybe, as SI’s John Heyman suggested on WFAN yesterday, the Tampa Bay Rays didn’t actually believe this would be their year. Maybe the team wasn’t prepared to negotiate deadline deals because it thought a .500 record was the ultimate goal in 2008.
  
  But now, everything has changed and the Rays need to make a move. The team is still in first place, two games ahead of the Red Sox and four in front of the Yankees, but it is in desperate need of a bat. The Rays have scored more than four runs in a game just three times since it completed a sweep of Kansas City on July 6.
  
  Jason Bay, a player I love, might be the guy the team is trying to trade for, but he isn’t the best player available. That honor goes to none other than Barry Bonds, the guy whose OBP last season was almost 100 points higher than anyone in the Rays lineup today.
  
  Even if Bonds has regressed, he is still going to be on base 40 percent of the time and will undoubtedly put butts in seats. And if you’re telling me he isn’t more valuable than any of the players the Rays currently stick at DH, you’re out of your mind.
  
  The Rays considered Bonds an option before the season; now it’s time to make the Home Run King a priority.
  
  
• The Angels had a perfect night in Boston, acquiring Mark Teixeira before its game and then watching John Lackey no-hit the Sox for 8 1/3 innings. Already a World Series favorite, the trade puts the Angels in a league of its own, far ahead of the Red Sox, who they seem to dominate every time they meet.
  
  
• ESPN ranked UConn Men’s Basketball the sixth best program of the last 20 years, which is a testament to how Coach Jim Calhoun transformed a regional program into a national brand. But you have to wonder if he is proud of the current state of the program.
  
  His players have had off the court problems dating back to the laptop incidents, which have resulted in a couple arrests and even more transfers. Most recently, he brought in Nate Miles, a red flag guy who took the spot of the academically ineligible Stanley Robinson.
  
  Calhoun is an old school guy and it seems like he has figured out in a hurry that you have to be willing to compromise integrity in order to remain sustainable as a big time basketball program. It will be interesting to see how much more of this he can take.
  
  
• I’m always amazed by the people who complain about the length of the baseball and basketball seasons. They’re almost always the same ones who get all jazzed up about who is going to report to football camp in July.

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