A 162-game season can often read like a six-month baseball-hued soap opera when the storylines shift gears from one day to the next. After Friday night’s 20-11 Yankees win, arguably the ugliest Red Sox home performance since Game 3 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, Brad Penny’s bleak future served as the main talking point. Pink-hat fans offered an alternative, shrieking over talk radio lines that Terry Francona waved the white flag of surrender too early.

After Saturday afternoons 14-1 Red Sox win, the shrieks came from the five boroughs and tri-state regions. A.J. Burnett’s third hideous Fenway outing of 2009 took center stage, along with grumblings that he and catcher Jorge Posada were on different wavelengths. Then there is the big-picture question concerning the long-term viability of older veterans like Posada, Johnny Damon (whose contract is up this year) and even the iconic shortstop, Derek Heter.

As for New Englanders, they bask in the glow of Junichi Tazawa’s six scoreless innings against The Empire and the hope that David Ortiz has turned the last corner in his two-year struggle to resume the role of Big Papi.

Then there is the ongoing negotiations between the Red Sox, Bill Wagner and the Mets that could bring the veteran reliever on board.

Tags: A.J. Burnett, David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, Jorge Posada, Junichi Tazawa, Red Sox, Yankees