"Call it, Friendo."

I originally planned to rant about the Red Sox dropping a nutbuster of a game against the Os and putting up a meager 2 hits in their bid to break .500 for the first time this season.

Then I figured, what’s the point? Last’s year’s model flailed and spazzed through much of April and May, then got their shit right and kicked ass all summer. So I’ll just assume that someone — maybe Ortiz, who seems to be questioning why he’s not perceived as a clubhouse leader, maybe Pedroia, maybe Bobby V’s fake moustache — will call the boys to arms and spark a twenty game win streak come June.

In the meantime, I want to give props to the madness that is Vicente Padilla. Yes, he is one of the 2012 team’s unsung heroes. Yes, he has not allowed a single inherited baserunner to score this season.

But more importantly, he fills that critical “scary-ass dude out of the pen” role that we have been sorely lacking — perhaps ever since Uggie Urbina left us. He looks alarmingly like the bad guy in “No Country For Old Men,” and his blank stare, showing-no-emotions-as-he-mows-you-down attitude only enhances the chilling effect when he takes the mound.

Write this down: when things heat up this summer, Padilla’s scary mug will be leading the fray.