When a picture is worth 1000 words . . .

So yeah. By Win Expectation, the Red Sox came back from a less-than-1% chance to win the game - that's Some Good. The Sox had a 1.1% Win Expectancy when they came up to bat in the 7th - that means they overcame a 99:1 longshot inside of nine outs. Unreal. You can't even make that stuff up, to be honest.

JD Drew gets treated like Scolari in BaseketBall, even by otherwise rational Red Sox fans - whether it's because of his calm demeanor, his relative inability to smash his helmet or argue with the umpire like Youkilis, or simply because he's from Georgia and, fuck, we sent Sherman after all . . . it's nonsense, but the image of JD Drew as an overpaid, lazy malingerer is still ripe within pockets of Red Sox Nation, like some sort of intellectual SuperAIDS, spurned by the methamphetamine of newfound entitlement felt by pampered and spoiled Sox fans (never though i'd write that . . .).

Well, I wrote about Mr. Drew in the past, but I think today provides us one stat that should usurp almost every other, even after the hangover from last night subsides:

Red Sox total WPA: .608
JD Drew's WPA: .554

Yep - JD Drew's HR and game-ending walk-off "single" (NOTE: I'll never understand why a walk-off ground-rule double doesn't automatically drive in both runs like a HR would, but I digress) accounted for 91% of the total Red Sox WPA for the game. You know our (my?) aversion to context-based stats like RBI on this very blog, but over a one-game sample, I have no problem noting that JD Drew was the balls last night.

Oh, and apparently a few of our friends were among the multitudes that left early last night, missing the entire comeback. I can only imagine this is the sporting equivalent of passing out during sex, or missing your flight to Vegas, or taking the LSAT during a bachelor party - sure, you'll hear about it later, but that has to make it worse, right?

JD Drew did not rape your mother

Among other bad things, JD Drew does not get as dirty as some fuckfaced retards (COUGH COUGH) would enjoy - he also takes a lot of pitches, almost never swears on the field, practices wikka, has never (to my knowledge) railed a stripper or dragged Jacoby Ellsbury's drunken ass off a bar stool at Fanuiel, and went home to be with his 18-mo.-old son instead of getting wasted on the mound with a naked Papelbon last week.

He did not, however, rape your mother, nor did he rape the Red Sox out of $14 million.

After the dust settled, JD Drew finished with a season-long composite of .270/.373/.423 (for a .796 OPS) - this is not exactly worth $14 million on the whole, but this compares similarly with such stalwart players as Jermaine Dye (who some idiots wanted to replace Drew at the trading deadline), Miguel Tejada and Michael Young. By most measurements Drew played decent defense (with the exception of Zone Rating, which is always f-ed for Fenway's bizarre RF) to offset the positional issues. He was worth about 4.6 wins according to WARP3, and was certainly a positive contributor for the Sox this season.

More striking, Drew has amped it up in September, to the tune of .342/.454/.618 (OPS of 1.072). In the second half, he went .286/.379/.462 (OPS .841), which includes a brutal month of July. If you take away his May and July bed-poopings, he played four months of .900+ OPS baseball - Manny Ramirez has an OPS of just about .900 exactly this season. When you look at that division banner and think about the Yankees' inevitable run this month, you have JD Drew to thank for helping fend off the Scourge's Surge.

With the usual adjustment to the AL, as well as the severe personal issues Drew has gone through, this season and his hot streak heading toward the playoffs should be viewed as a massive positive - booing this man should result in a punch in the anus, when Certified Hard Workers (r) like Trot Nixon struggle to sub-.700 OPS numbers in a platoon role.

So the next time Simmons makes a cheap crack about Drew wilting in a prime role or taking a called third strike think about this:

Drew's OPS for the year: .796
RISP: .784 (league: .780/RS: .829)
RISP/2 out: .831 (league: .753/RS: .792)
Tie game: .863 (league: .764/RS: .825)
Close/late: .763 (league: .723/RS: .745)
Plus, Drew is third on the team in WPA for hitters - if you don't know what that is, bitch you better ask somebody . . .

Then, after properly smart-ifying yourself, inform them kindly that they should a.) eat uncooked pork and get trichinosis and/or b.) stop being the Massholiest of all Massholes, and embrace a guy who has worked hard and fought through 2 very tough months to be a productive player who may wind up the centerpiece of the Sox playoff run. If nothing else, his September indicates he could be the middle-of-the-order fixture the Sox wanted him to be for years to come.

JD Drew is not a problem on the 2007 Red Sox. Should the Sox get some breaks, I fully expect to see Drew on the mound, dancing with Paps and looking like these guys: