The talk last week was of roster composition and its evil twin, "team chemistry", and it was all sparked by player grumbling about the number of different lineups. It jumped from there, as talk often does, to assigning blame. This version: Who's at fault for the construction of what became accepted as a dysfunctional roster, with too many middle infielders and not enough first basemen and all these guys who thought they were everyday players, etc., etc., etc.

It's funny, but the more I thought about it the more I felt that -- like many things in life -- no one was to blame, per se; it just happened.

Consider . . .

On February 15, when the Sox prepared to gather in Fort Myers, the non-pitching portion of the roster seemed set. Heading into spring training, this is what it looked like:

CATCHERS: Varitek/Hatteberg
FIRST BASE: Daubach/????
SECOND BASE: Offerman
SHORTSTOP: Garciaparra
THIRD BASE: Stynes/Valentin
LEFT FIELD: Ramirez
CENTER FIELD: Everett
RIGHT FIELD: Nixon (with Lewis?)
DESIGNATED HITTER: Bichette

The only question in the everyday lineup was who would platoon at first base with Daubach; the Sox' first thought was to see if Dante Bichette could handle it, which would open the DH slot (against lefties) to any number of options. Since Troy O'Leary seemed consigned as the fourth outfielder, there seemed to be only two roster spots open, both of which would go to middle infielders. One of them was sure to be Mike Lansing, so it looked -- on February 15 -- as if the six weeks of spring training would basically boil to down to finding out which of three men (Craig Grebeck, Lou Merloni, Jon Shave) would be the seventh infielder.

That roster is not at all dysfunctional. It's true there would be former everyday players (Lansing, O'Leary, Lewis) on the bench, but it's also true that none of them could reasonably expect to crack this starting lineup. (Lewis, in fact, had already lost his starting job a year earlier, and Lansing had never been a regular in Boston.) It looked like a solid team.

Then the dominoes began falling.

-- Garciaparra got hurt; what's worse, it was a month before the Sox knew which unpleasant scenario (Nomar out for a couple of weeks, Nomar out for a month, Nomar needing surgery and out for half the season) was actually unfolding. They had to guess whether Garciaparra would be back in time for Opening Day or soon afterwards, and if he wasn't whether to trade for a shortstop or try to cobble something together with the people on hand. When it became apparent Garciaparra had to have the operation, it was so late in camp that many of the trade options had either disappeared or simply weren't very attractive. They elected to go with what they had.

-- After initially agreeing to the move, Ramirez decided he was unwilling to switch from right to left field. That would have taken Nixon out of the lineup and given O'Leary his job back -- weakening the team both offensively and defensively -- except Ramirez got hurt the second week of the exhibition schedule and couldn't play the outfield.

-- John Valentin, limping from the beginning of workouts, suffered an inevitable setback in his comeback from knee surgery. That opened the door for . . .

-- Shea Hillenbrand, who did the near-impossible: Despite having no Triple-A experience, he played so well in the exhibition games that he won a starting job over established veterans.

It completely jumbled the picture. The Garciaparra injury, strangely, wasn't a factor; it just meant the Sox had to actually play people whom they'd anticipated would ride the bench. But Ramirez's injury forced him into the DH slot. And Hillenbrand taking over as the everyday third baseman meant the Sox would have to find another position for Chris Stynes. The situation was clouded when Williams made some end-of-camp pronouncements -- Stynes would become the regular second baseman, Offerman would be the right-handed compliment to Daubach at first, the DH role would be a Hatteberg/Bichette platoon -- that never came to pass. (Ramirez had to DH; Stynes got hurt in the season's second game, which forced the Sox to reinstate Offerman at second.) But when the dust settled, the team, save for Everett and Daubach and Varitek (and, thanks to Stynes's injury, Offerman), bore little resemblance to the blueprint of winter.

The thing is, it wasn't anybody's fault. Duquette's original team was fine; how could he anticipate that two of his three most important regulars (Garciaparra and Ramirez) wouldn't be able to play where planned? And Williams's only contributions to the confusion were his dual decisions that 1) Hillenbrand could play every day in the major leagues and 2) Bichette no longer could. Whether you like him or hate him, you have to admit that a big part of a manager's job is to make those kind of calls. Give him credit that he had the courage to stand by his convictions, especially since we've yet to see any indication, six weeks into the season, that he was wrong.

Things got really messy when Stynes came off the DL in late April, since second base was now the only position open to him. But the other factor in last week's controversy wasn't so apparent. Remember all those former everyday players who'd seemed consigned to the bench on February 15? Well, many of them had gotten to play -- a lot -- in the first 25 or 30 games. They weren't so willing to go back quietly to reserve roles. Nor had Bichette ever accepted Williams's judgment that his days as a regular were over.

The genie was out of the bottle. Now, rather than being resigned to their fate, the reserves did want to play more. Now there were players on the bench who were there for no other reason than there wasn't a position available to them. Now the roster was dysfunctional.

The only thing Duquette could have done to solve the problem was try to make trades . . . but conventional wisdom is that many of these Sox -- Lansing, O'Leary, Bichette, even Offerman -- are unmoveable because of their contracts. The only thing Williams could have done was gone back, as much as he could, to Plan A . . . but that would have meant putting what he feels is a weaker lineup on the field.

Over the course of six months and 162 games, things have a way of working out. Chris Stynes's unfortunate injury actually solves the second-base problem. The word is that Manny Ramirez will soon start playing left field, which will keep Nixon where he belongs (in right field) and -- if there's a God in heaven -- place O'Leary where he belongs (on the bench). Very soon, things won't seem so dysfunctional. When Garciaparra returns, the lineup will seem downright stable.

When that happens, it won't be because of any great management stratagems. It'll just be the way things shook down.

Which is exactly how they got into this mess in the first place.