The Red Sox did not want to give up the future.

Wasn't that the mantra?

Wasn't that Theo Epstein's response to why the Red Sox failed to make any significant moves at the trading deadline two weeks ago?

Wasn't that the reason the Sox did nothing, while Brian Cashman significantly upgraded the Yankees, essentially giving up nothing to do it?

Makes you wonder.

It seems to me the future is now. Manny and Ortiz in their prime. Schilling near the end, maybe Varitek, too. It seems to me that in a season where the National League looks like an overpaid International League, the Yankees have had their problems, the White Sox have a hangover after last year's World Series win, and no one seems able to name four position players on the Tigers, the future is now for the Red Sox. Not off in some hazy distance somewhere.

Now!

This should be the primary focus with a franchise that has the highest ticket prices in baseball, the second highest payroll. Especially with a team that spent the first half of the season in first place in the American League East. The focus should be to be doing all you can do to win now, for the simple reason that there are no guarantees in sports. The future always is as unpredictable as a windblown popup. No one can put their hands around it. You try and win when you can for the simple reason that who really knows when you're going to get another chance.

This is not some rebuilding situation we're talking about here, not some season that got away from the Red Sox early, one that had turned sour before the All-Star Game. This is a team that just a few weeks ago was being called as good as any in the American League. And now they seem to be in need of a jump start, a victim of too many injuries and a bullpen that seems as tired as a triathlete.

A team that needed help at the trading deadline and didn't get it.

Rest assured this would be different if the Sox had not won in 2004. There would be a sense of urgency, a sense that it was imperative to win now. That was the climate in 2004 when Theo traded Nomar, controversial, the sense that nothing was more important than winning now.

So what happened to that sense of urgency?

Now it seems muted, as if winning in 2004 took the pressure off, and now we hear talk about some long-range plan. It sounds great in theory, certainly, until you start looking up at the Yankees in the standings and the season starts to seem as if it's slip-sliding away.

Theo's reluctance to trade his young pitchers is understandable. In a game where pitching is key, the thought of giving up young arms is the new sin. Can anyone say Scott Kazmir? But what are the odds that all three of the young guns -- Craig Hansen, Jon Lester, and Manny Delcarmen -- are going to turn out to be great? Probably not too good.

The point is you have to give up something to get something, and if the reports are true that the Sox could have gotten Houston's Roy Oswalt in a deal it's tantalizing to think of what that would have meant. Oswalt is a front-of-the rotation guy in the prime of his career, the kind of guy that you hope Lester one day could become. Someone who would have arguably given this Red Sox team three quality starters. Oswalt arguably would have made the Sox the best team in the division.

Instead, the Yankees are.

They're the team that improved itself at the trading deadline, the team that survived its rash of injuries, the team that's found a new life as the Sox have hit some invisible wall.

That's the other thing about doing something significant at the trading deadline. It sends a message to the clubhouse that you're serious. It sends the message that nothing is more important than right now, the best message any team can have. Rest assured that players in the clubhouse couldn't care less about the organization's future. To them the future is the next series, not some year in which the odds are they'll be somewhere else anyway. No one lives in the present tense more than professional athletes.

Curt Schilling's supposed to care about the future?

And maybe the Sox did try at the trading deadline, and other teams backed out at the last minute. Who knows? Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter. What matters is results. All the rest is fodder for talk shows, the woulda-shoulda-coulda banter that goes back and forth like a game of catch.

The Red Sox can spin this anyway they want, but if this team fails to make the playoffs, this season should be viewed as a major disappointment. This is a team with Manny and Ortiz in their prime, Schilling is still a front-line pitcher, and the payroll is the second biggest in the game. This is a team that's supposed to be in the playoffs, not were positioning itself for some undetermined future.

breynold@projo.com / (401) 277-7340