01:00 AM EDT on Monday, May 24, 2004

BOSTON -- No fun yesterday at friendly-but-fretful Fenway.

That's because there was nothing to worry about.

Not after the third inning anyway, when the Red Sox scored four runs to open up a 6-0 lead, which was much more than enough with knuckleballing Tim Wakefield on the mound against the struggling Toronto Blue Jays.

Oh, there may have been some seat-squirming, along with a bit of grumbling and grousing, when the Sox left the bases loaded in the first and second innings.

You know, the sort of "We could have, should have blown the game open but didn't, and now watch the Jays come back to win," kind of commentary, all of which became moot after the third.

That offensive outburst, capped by David Ortiz' two-run double into the right-field corner, left mute the nail-biting segment of Boston baseball fandom who are only happy when they have something to worry about.

And that segment is significant.

How else to explain the seemingly constant concern about the fact that four of Boston's most prominent players are unsigned for next season.

Obviously, the Fenway fretful don't have enough to worry about in 2004, so they're projecting their perceived problems ahead to 2005.

Haunted by the past, and uncomfortable with a pleasant present, they prefer to get all worked up about the future.

Even if it makes no sense, and even though the way the Boston front office is handling the contract situations of its unsigned stars makes perfect sense.

So what if Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, and Jason Varitek all have contracts expiring at the end of this season?

That's still six months away -- five if you're one of those certified sickos who is worried that the Sox won't make it to

the playoffs -- so why worry about it now?

With yesterday's easy win over the Jays, which gave the Sox a sweep of their three-game series with Toronto, Boston now has won 5 of its last 6 games, and 7 of 9.

The Sox improved their record at friendly-but-fretful Fenway to 14-6, a dazzling .700 winning percentage that is the best home mark in the majors. Not surprisingly, Boston also has the second-best record in the big leagues at 27-17, trailing only Anaheim.

This, despite playing the first two months of the season without two top players -- Garciaparra and Trot Nixon, who have been sidelined by injuries since spring training and aren't expected to return until sometime next month -- and the fact that the Sox haven't been playing particularly good defense.

It's even hard for the Fenway fretful to get all that worked up about their favorite nemesis, the hated, dreaded Bronx Bombers. The Sox have beaten the Yankees in six of seven games so far, and have a lead, slim though it may be, over New York in the A.L. East standings.

You'd think, given all that, that Sox fans would be ecstatic. That they'd be enjoying the moment.

You would think that, unless you had spent significant time in New England, and thus come to understand the tortured psyche of the true Red Sox rooter -- an angst-ridden, long-suffering soul, who, at least subconsciously, considers himself cursed and isn't really happy unless he's miserable.

How else to explain, in a season where there has been very little to complain about, the fixation on which players are unsigned for next season?

It doesn't matter right now.

It won't matter until after this season is over, at which point the Sox can decide how many, if any, of the Big Four free agents they want to sign.

Is there really a Red Sox fan out there who is unhappy that the Sox haven't signed Derek Lowe to a big-money deal?

If anybody's unhappy, it ought to be Lowe, after turning down a 3-year, $27-million deal he was offered before the season started.

He certainly hasn't been worth that kind of money so far.

Scheduled to start Wednesday night against Oakland, Lowe was shelled in his last start by the lowly Devil Rays, who rocked him for seven straight hits in the third inning, increasing his earned-run average to 6.02 while dropping his record to 3-4, even though his last four starts have come against Cleveland, Kansas City, Toronto and Tampa Bay.

Some say that Lowe, who has more walks (20) than strikeouts (18), would be pitching much better if not for the pressure of being unsigned in a contract year.

To which others might say: If he can't handle that supposed pressure, how will he respond to the genuine pressure of pitching in a World Series, which Boston hasn't won since 1918?

As for Martinez, the highest-paid pitcher in baseball at a salary of $17 million this season, his E.R.A. is 3.68, his record is 4-3, and his arm is fragile.

Pedro was pulled after the sixth inning of a 2-2 game Saturday after having thrown 107 pitches. As we learned last year, such tactics keep him fresh so he doesn't wear down and lose his effectiveness in the late innings of those crucial games -- a seventh game of the ALCS, for example -- in October.

(Yes, gentle and perceptive reader, sarcasm is intended.)

On the subject of fragility, this is the second time in four years the Sox have opened the season with Garciaparra on the disabled list.

He appeared in only 21 games in 2001 after undergoing wrist surgery in early April. Although Nomar played in 156 games each of the last two seasons, he struggled down the stretch last year, hitting a mere .170 in the month of September and then driving in just one run in 12 postseason games.

Which brings us to Varitek, a classy guy who continues to go about his business, hitting .297 this season, with 7 homers and 18 RBI. But he's also 32 years old, an age at which many teams get squeamish about extending lucrative, long-term contracts to catchers.

Logic dictates that the contracts of Varitek, Garciaparra, Martinez and Lowe shouldn't be a concern until after this season, which has been surprisingly and delightfully successful so far.

Unfortunately, logic has nothing to do with being a faithful-but-fretful fan of the perennially-frustrating Red Sox.