The Wrong Brother

The Red Sox have a long history of acquiring the 'wrong' one among baseball-playing brothers:

* Dom DiMaggio rather than Joe (although Dom was, by all accounts, more admirable than Joe off the field, and a better baseball player (7-time All Star) than Vince (2-time All-Star))

* Jeremy Giambi was supposed to be the answer at designated hitter in 2003, with David Ortiz signed that same winter as back-up insurance. Jeremy was certainly no Big Papi, and has been no Jason Giambi either.

* Which brings us to the news that J.D. ($70M) Drew will likely sit tonight against Cleveland's C.C. Sabathia in favor of Bobby Kielty, who is the very definition of a replacement-level player. (Kielty was signed in August when he was literally out of baseball, having been released by the A's.) Meanwhile, over in the NLCS, Arizona relies on 24-year-old Stephen Drew at shortstop; S. Drew went 7-14 in the NLDS with 4 RBIs (albeit 1-for-4 last night), but also led the Drew family with career-smiles-on-camera (with at least 1, during Game Three in Chicago).

Which is not to say the Sox always get the wrong brother: in 1992, the Dodgers had both Pedro and Ramon Martinez on their roster, and elected to keep Ramon. The Sox signed Ramon in 1999 (to team with brother Pedro), but let Ramon walk after 2001, and stuck with Pedro until 2004.