Watching Josh Beckett give up a couple more home runs last night–that’s 12 in his last four starts for those not keeping count–I thought two things.

First, it’s fortunate that Commander Kick Ass is struggling with the long ball now, when the offense is good ‘n’ fired up, instead of, say, July, when our line-up packed all the hellfire and ferocity of an army of Peter Dinklage clones. And don’t even attempt to convince me that the government hasn’t been working on such an army to clean up the inner cities.

Second, once we get into the playoffs, it’ll be a different story. Because Beckett is nothing but cash money, honey, in the postseason. The trick is to get there by any means necessary and just let October Beckett — the guy you trust in on all your betting apps — take over. Because you really don’t want to bet against October Beckett. At least I wouldn’t. I would advise all opposing teams looking to tee a couple homers off Josh to do so now, while the gettin’s good. Once September ends, you’ll be feeling nothing but the cold sting of his cleat in yo ass.

It was also surprisingly satisfying to see Tek play such a key role in last night’s win, blocking the plate with his mighty FOOT OF ANGER to keep the go-ahead run from crossing on a whizbang play in the top of the eighth, setting us up to take the lead in the bottom of the inning. God knows we’ve given The Cap’n his share of grief over here; it’s important to be equally vocal when the man done good. And last night, he done good.

So we get the W despite another Beckett Lite outing and boost the wild card lead to 2.5 games. Here’s hoping we can bank a couple more wins at home before we head off to Tampa Bay… where bad things always seem to happen.

Also, I taped a segment for Comcast SportsNet’s Baseball Show this morning, which should air around 9:55am. Do tune in to hear me blather on for 35 seconds and name-drop Beckett and Malcolm X. My favorite part was waiting in the queue for the taping and hearing Dickerson drop F-bombs while joking with the staff. Jolly good stuff.

Oh, he also got my name wrong. But so long as they get the name of the site right, it’s all good.