BOSTON'S CLOSER-BY-COMMITTEE TAKES HIT.

Byline: GABE LACQUES

Not verybody can win opening day, so it's only natural for the 15 teams who started the season 0-1 to chalk it up as ``just one game,'' a statement usually followed by analogies involving sprints and marathons and tortoises and hares.

In Boston, however, everything is magnified, and for once, the fatalistic nature of Red Sox fans and the glare of a scrutinizing media was more than justified after the Sox coughed up a three-run lead in the ninth inning of opening day to, of all teams, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

See, the Red Sox spent the better part of the offseason bucking baseball convention. They handed the general manager's job to 29-year-old Theo Epstein, who graduated not only from Yale but also from the school of thought that suggests rigid statistical analysis makes for the best method of player evaluation.

The Sox then hired stats guru Bill James as a consultant. Among James' findings was a theory that suggested the most important outs a bullpen can register are in the seventh inning of close games.

So even though the game's evolution in the past quarter-century suggested a team with any hope of winning a World Series needs a top-flight closer, the Red Sox decided not to spend any of their $97 million payroll on one, opting for a closer-by-committee to handle late-inning chores.

One week into the season, you couldn't fault Red Sox fans if they wanted to see this committee adjourned.

The Sox assembled a not-so-fab-five of Chad Fox, Bobby Howry, Mike Timlin, Ramiro Mendoza and Alan Embree to close games, and while three of them at some point have been closers, none are of the bona fide variety. And in the first two games of the grand experiment, they twice blew three-run leads, setting an uneasy tone for the season.

The first opportunity was the easiest, a three-run lead entering the ninth. Embree, one of the hardest-throwing left-handers in the game, gave up a single, home run (to Dodgers releasee Terry Shumpert) and single before Fox and his twice-rebuilt right elbow were summoned. Fox got a strikeout and a fielder's choice before Carl Crawford golfed a three-run, game-winning home run.

And thus began the spin cycle.

``This happens to closers, too,'' Fox told the Boston Globe. ``Unfortunately, this happened in Game 1 when people have been making a big deal of the closer by committee. But if anyone thinks I'm going to lay down and die, or Alan is going to lay down and die, they're sadly mistaken.''

Said Epstein: ``Those things are going to happen. You can't react. It's one game. On opening day things tend to be magnified, but it's one loss.''

It nearly became two losses the next night, when Timlin and Howry blew another three-run lead, albeit in the seventh and eighth innings. The Red Sox went on to win, but it took 16 innings, and who knows the damage done to the clubhouse psyche?

Tim Salmon was wondering the same thing. The Angels outfielder has been fortunate the past eight seasons; his team's closer role has been ably manned by Lee Smith and Troy Percival. But he also remembers the lean years after Bryan Harvey and before Smith and Percival arrived, when the likes of Joe Grahe and Mark Leiter tried to man the final spot in the bullpen. Coincidentally, the Angels didn't come close to contending those years.

``You look at the Red Sox situation and see they had leads and lost them, and those are the crushers,'' Salmon said. ``They won the second game, but 16 innings? Those guys are gassed now. (Having a closer) gives you confidence, and it puts a lot of pressure on the other team. When you know the bullpen can keep a one-run lead safe, it picks you up.''

The roller coaster continued all week. Timlin and Fox handled the last two innings of the third game without incident, with Fox picking up his first save since 2001. By Thursday, Epstein looked good when left-hander Casey Fossum, whom he refused to include in a deal for Bartolo Colon last winter, struck out eight in five innings of work in a 14-5 rout.

By Friday, it was white-knuckle time again. The Sox led Baltimore 8-1 in the seventh, and Mendoza started the ninth inning with an 8-3 lead. He finished it, too, but only after giving up four runs and only after shortstop Nomar Garciaparra threw out the potential tying run at the plate to end the game. On Saturday, Fox entered a tie game in the ninth, gave up a walk, double and intentional walk before walking in the winning run. It capped a 4-2 week like no other.

``Gray hairs? What hair I have left is turning gray,'' Epstein said.

Too many committee meetings will do that to a guy.