Be Nice.

 What'd I tell you?

Jason Varitek shows up for the Jason Varitek love fest and almost immediately starts running interference for everybody's favorite whipping boys, Jon Lester and Josh Beckett.

Says Jason:

“I’m just a believer that they need, they need Red Sox Nation to get behind them, quit looking at the faults. What hasn’t happened, hasn’t happened. They have a chance not only at the wild card but they’re still [9 1/2 games] out [behind the Yankees]. A lot of baseball left. They make a difference, and have made a difference, both positively and negatively. If they gear that toward the positive side, they can propel this team because this is a good team.

“I don’t think they’re that far off. Start before last, Josh had a great outing. You live in the moment, OK, he hasn’t had one of those in a quite a while, if I’ve been paying attention enough. But, to do that, and to live in that [bad] moment doesn’t allow them to get behind Josh for his next outing because you live in his next outing because you can’t do anything about the one before.”

So be nice because really they just want to be loved. And if you loved them they would suddenly remember how to not be terrible at pitching. And for goodness sake, don't laugh about Josh Beckett's foundation only having like six hundred followers on twitter. It's not funny. (I'm certain that he doesn't actually write it because it seems unlikely to me that he's ever uttered the word 'howdy' let alone typed it out.)

Most importantly we learn that Jason doesn't live in a vacuum. Thank goodness. It would probably be very dusty--terrible for allergies.

[This is the sort of joke that is very funny at three in the morning when you've been up for hours and hours and hours. I promise it's hysterical.]