Be careful what you wish for.

Its the safe move.

It's what we used to call a "beige choice" in college - easy, vanilla, risk-free.

But a wise man once told me, before I even understood what it meant:

"No balls, no babies."

Will Papelbon be a solid closer? Of course he will. He may not put up the Hall-of-Fame numbers he did last year, but he'll certainly be one of the most effective closers in the league. Unless he pitched yesterday, of course. Or if we need two innings, sorry, he won't be available for that. But absolutely - the twenty pitches he gives us every other night will be nothing short of magical.

And of course it is naive to think Paps has been miraculously healed by the Florida sun and some freshly squeezed orange juice. But it is just as naive to think he is now healthy! Unless the Sox docs (the Dox?) were lying to us in the fall, Paps' shoulder is a cause for concern, and will continue to be a cause for concern for the rest of his career. The front office has obviously decided it is better to appease the old guard of "This is the year!" fans who will erupt at the first blown save than to protect the career of an excellent young pitcher. Who cares if Paps' shoulder falls off in the offseason - this is the year!

There is a bigger issue at play, however. Now that we will be graced with cameo appearances from Mr. Papelbon on a bi-nightly basis, Tom in Boston's "Gong Show" has been rescheduled to air every fifth day.

The Sox obviously assume they are dealing from a position of depth in regards to their rotation in moving Paps to the pen. Remember the last time we heard great things about the depth of the rotation? Don't think back too far...it was only one year ago that the Sox went into spring training with seven, count 'em, seven starting pitchers. From such depth, the Sox were able to deal Bronson Arroyo and let a young starter named Jon Papelbon wait his turn in the bullpen.

That depth panned out so well in the regular season that Kyle Snyder only had to make ten starts, Julian Tavarez got the nod for six, Lenny Dinardo got the baseball six times, Jason Johnson took the hill six times, Kason Gabbard got four chances to strike fear into the opposition, Kevin Jarvis saw his name at the top of the box score thrice, David Pauley had three chances to be a footnote on SportsCenter, and Devern Hansack's parents had two chances to see their little boy start a game as a professional. That's 40 starts (25% of the season...incidentally the same percentage of blown saves Clemens suffered) that we're punting on this season; 40 chances for Tito to give the regulars a day off on a Sunday afternoon and hope for the best tomorrow.

And that's just now that we don't have a fifth starter. What if Beckett gets his blisters back, or Schill blows out his back, or Wake gets a hangnail? Now we have two days of five without a real chance at a W.

But there is always a silver lining, of course. At least under these circumstances, our boy Paps knows in advance which days he won't need to worry about protecting a late-game lead.