Minnesota Twins defeat Boston Red Sox, 4-3

The polls, the sentiment, the common sense all favor Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein saving his valued prospects to acquire pitching.

Getting Jamie Moyer from Seattle, for example, would make it more difficult for the Yankees to acquire a lefthanded pitcher, which they may need in the playoffs. Or, the prospects could be used to obtain Seattle righthander Freddy Garcia, the prize of the '04 trade market.

That's sound judgment.

But as the Red Sox season unfold...

Good thing the Red Sox have 91 games to play. They have plenty of time to correct what they learned from the first 71.

The most important lesson of all? They need to run on all cylinders if they hope to go very far.

Pitching well is all fine and dandy. So is hitting well. And fielding well. But if the Sox expect to reach the postseason -- and go deeper than they did last year -- they need to start doing all three well. And they need to do it consistently.

In findi...