It looks as though Julio "E6" Lugo will continue to bat his .260 with string bean arm power in a Sox uniform for the time being.

A trade that would have mercifully sent Lugo to the Detroit Tigers for either Dontrelle Willis or Nate Robertson has stalled and is probably as dead as Lugo's bat.

Shortstop for the Sox is like a reverse Bermuda Triangle: They go in and leave one season in. Why can't Theo get it right?

Shortstop is the Boy Genius' one Achilles Heel, like the high school  kid who aces every subject and tanks at math.

A better image is him as the sad sack John Cusack-esque movie protagonist who pines over the one who got away (Orlando Cabrera) while wading through a pool of disastrous relationships (Edgar Renteria, Lugo). Jed Lowrie might be the ok "girl" he settles on when he's 30 something and the only bachelor in his group of friends.

A sure shot shortstop was dealt in Hanley Ramirez in 2006, but when you have a chance to land Josh Beckett, you do it. But Epstein was still on his contract bluff hiatus when that trade was made.

Maybe the ground at the position is cursed, made from re-processed dirt from an Indian burial ground; the spirits are mad and they'll curse that soil til they get it back.

-Chris Boardman