Krause: As hard as it may be to admit, the better team won in Game Seven

It’s easy to be philosophical when the Red Sox lose now. We don’t have 86 years of futility to bemoan when the elements don’t line up for us.We should be able to intelligently analyze the recently-completed American League Championship Series and acknowledge that – at least this year – the better team won.This doesn’t imply that the Red Sox were somehow derelict in trying to put the best team on the field. It just means that given all the conditions under which both teams played the 2008 American League Championship Series, the Tampa Bay Rays were better.The only true shock about the outcome is that the Red Sox squeezed out seven games.Ordinarily, you burrow through the collective rosters of both teams and come up with a little wrinkle or two that spell the difference between wins and losses in a close series. But there weren’t little differences this time. There were big ones.Let’s start with the respective lineups – especially the middle. By the postseason, Tampa’s 3-4-5 hitters were Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford. While Crawford and Longoria were injured toward the latter part of the season, they came back, healthy and ready to play, by October.The Red Sox – for all intents and purposes – were physically missing two-thirds of their 3-4-5 troika ? and almost all of it figuratively when you consider that David Ortiz was either injured, or (dare we say it?) entering into that “post-prime” stage of his career (I choose injured, but fully concede it’s only because that’s what I WANT to think).The Red Sox didn’t really have a classic cleanup hitter in this series (although Kevin Youkilis performed nobly). But when Manny Ramirez forced himself to be shipped out of town, there went one of the most fearsome right-handed sluggers the game has seen in 25 years (only Albert Pujols, I’d say, strikes more fear into the heart of a pitcher). Jason Bay is a nice player, but he’s no Manny, and he’d be the first to tell you that.Not having Ramirez – especially in the playoffs – altered the way pitchers dealt with Ortiz; and Papi, as his frustrations mounted, grew less and less patient at the plate and popped up a ton of pitches. Perhaps he could put two and two together next year and concede that teams can’t play that exaggerated shift on him if he uses the whole field.At No. 5, the Rays had Crawford, the team’s elder statesman in terms of service (though he’s still in his 20s). He got five hits in Game 4. The Red Sox flip-flopped between Bay and J.D. Drew. And while Drew certainly had his moments, neither was a worthy substitute for the deadly, clutch Mike Lowell – one of the most important players on the team.Ask the Rays to play without Longoria, Pena or Crawford while the Red Sox have a healthy Ortiz and Lowell and a happy Manny, and tell me who wins the series?If we turn to pitching, the Rays had four healthy starters, while the Red Sox had three (I don’t count Josh Beckett, because it’s pretty obvious he wasn’t right ? even in the game he won). The only other thing you have to know about the Red Sox starting pitching is that the Rays trotted out a very capable 25-year-old Andy Sonnanstine in Game 4, while the Red Sox countered with the 42-year-old, rusty Tim Wakefield.Wakefield is an old pro’s old pro, and you’ll never worry about him coming unglued or mailing it in if things don’t go his way. But he’s still 42, and throws an unpredictable pitch that is either unhittable or looks like a piñata.You take what you get from him. And putting a crucial game in his hands isn’t the same as pitching him during the season, when his reputation for being able to eat innings saves the rest of the rotation; or throwing him out there when you’re up 2-1 in games instead of it being the other way around. But the Red Sox had no other choice. It was either Wakefield or Paul Byrd, and the guy they thought they’d groomed for this role – Clay Buchholz – wasn’t ready.They say you can’t use injuries as excuses, and they’re right. But in this case