From the point of view of the spectator, the best thing that can be said of the Red Sox and Yankees after yesterday’s game is that neither really deserved to win. It’s difficult to decide whether the number of pitchers who threw scoreless baseball or the sum of their collective ineptitude is more remarkable. But the fact that 12 relievers could throw 250 pitches against these two offenses with only Mariano Rivera allowing a run to cross before the last pitch beggars belief.

Especially since none of them, excepting Boston closer Keith Foulke, threw particularly well; and especially since the Red Sox, at least, seemed to be doing their best to throw the game the entire way. The Sox’ collective inability throughout this series to play fundamental baseball much above the level of a decent JV team must astonish anyone who likes to see a crisply played game.

Having watched about as closely as I’m able, I’m still unsure how Boston managed to overcome Manny Ramirez’s ability to turn anything hit within 50 feet of him into a double, the inabilities of Mark Bellhorn and Johnny Damon to lay down a sacrifice bunt, their manager’s insistence on such brain-melting strategy as having David Ortiz, representing the winning run, try to steal with one out, and their catcher’s inability to catch the ball.

But they did overcome all this. They can thank Ortiz, whose RBI single in the 14th inning delivered the Red Sox a second straight improbable win, and Tim Wakefield, whose knuckleball baffled the Yankees – and Jason Varitek – over the final three innings.

Most of all, they can thank the Yankees, who suffered an utter and collective collapse at the plate, though they made no errors so glaring as those the Red Sox committed seemingly at every possible chance. (Unless one counts their inability to score in an inning in which Wakefield allowed two base runners and three passed balls.) It would seem nearly impossible for a team with an offense of the Yankees’ caliber to be shut out for eight innings by a bullpen with only two good pitchers, but so it happened, and so the Yankees are now on the ropes.

It’s the last development that could possibly have been expected, but the confluence of Friday’s rainstorm and the Yankees’ inability to get a hit with a runner on base for an entire baseball game’s worth of extra innings have put the Red Sox in position to make an unprecedented comeback. Joe Torre goes into tonight’s game with a classic six-inning starter, Jon Lieber, and two rested relievers, Tanyon Sturtze and Felix Heredia.

In the best case scenario, Lieber will pitch well tonight and hand the ball to Tom Gordon and then Mariano Rivera; but Gordon has been awful this postseason, and Rivera has been worked very hard. So even this scenario is not overmuch cause for optimism.

Should anything much goes wrong tonight, either Lieber or Sturtze are going to have to take one for the team. Going into the playoffs, everyone knew the bullpen was the Yankees’ weakness, but no combination of circumstances could have exacerbated it so dramatically as those of the last four days.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, dream of a best-case scenario in which Curt Schilling has a Willis Reed moment, perhaps striking out 27 Yankees or winning the game with a clutch pinch-hit home run. At the least, he has a reasonable chance of being dominant and pitching deep into the game. His poor performance in Game 1 was the result of an injury which the Red Sox hope can be compensated for with medical equipment and rest.

Even if Schilling’s foot falls off on the mound, the Sox have reasonable fall-back options. While their ace relievers, Keith Foulke and Mike Timlin, have been worked just as hard as the Yankees’, they at least have backup relievers of some sort available. Wakefield will presumably be ready to pitch as long as is necessary, and while the fairly inept Alan Embree and Mike Myers strike fear in no one’s heart, they at least aren’t tired and inept like their Yankee counterpart, Paul Quantrill.

For a team that was up 3-0 two days ago, the Yankees will need an awful lot to go their way tonight to avoid a decisive Game 7 in which neither team will have a decent starter ready to go. They’ll need Lieber to be all that he’s been over the last month and a half, and more; they’ll need one among a group of sore, battered relivers to come through; and they’ll need Schilling to be injured so badly that he’s unable to pitch effectively.

Will all this happen? I, of course, haven’t got the faintest idea, but the advantage has to be with the team that’s asking one man to do something extraordinary, rather than with the team that’s asking several. If this seems unduly pessimistic, so be it; both these teams have proved everyone wrong over the last few days, and I have no doubt that they’ll both do so again tonight.