It also could have been a harbinger of things to come – or things that have already arrived and been ignored – in which case the big question on everyone’s mind should be the following: When do the Patriots get started, anyway?

Sunday’s 4-2 setback at the hands of the Seattle Mariners is, in the 162-game scheme of things, just another loss. But that’s oversimplifying a bitter, nasty defeat that could have dangerous lingering effects. At the very least, it exposed the Red Sox as a still-flawed club, healthy or not.

AP Photo

Because for all the injuries the Red Sox have survived – and we all know it’s been a biblical flood – none truly affected the bullpen. And that remains the team’s biggest Achilles Heel.

If Sunday did one thing, let’s hope it relegated Hideki Okajima to mop up duty until the end of the year, at which time he should be set free. The Sox got more than could be asked of him during his first three years, and are now watching his explosive demise in Technicolor.

His brain lock on an eighth-inning bunt touched off a disastrous inning that typified a roller-coaster weekend. What followed was a mess that won’t be forgotten by Red Sox Nation for a long time, especially if it was the latest step in a late-season crumble.

But Okajima has proven himself inept this season. Same for Ramon Ramirez. And Manny Delcarmen seems dead set on making it a trio.

So who do you trust besides Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon, the latter of whom hasn’t been unblemished himself? Scott Atchison?

Has it really come to that?

And here’s the trouble. Atchison has done a nice enough job, but his spots have been expertly picked. Start putting him into seventh-inning danger on a regular basis and he’ll quickly be exposed.

AP Photo

The Seattle series was a frustrating four-game tour of everything that is wrong with the Sox right now. The lineup is impotent because half of the bats are missing. And a team constructed on the premise of pitching and defense lost one game each due directly to the two tenets of that philosophy.

Jon Lester’s perfect game, no-hitter, shutout and lead evaporated in the blink of an eye Saturday night after Eric Patterson committed a monumental gaffe in center. The Sox had survived laughably poor defense just two nights earlier, when Marco Scutaro and Bill Hall conspired to ruin another near no-hitter and five-run lead, this one belonging to John Lackey. But they couldn’t survive Patterson’s blunder, which was followed by a Lester loss-of-focus and Seattle rally.

But Sunday was the spoiled icing on a moldy cake. Okajima couldn’t get anyone out, and compounded the issue by flubbing a pair of bunt attempts. And Francona could do little but watch the train wreck because he’d already used his only reliable set-up man and didn’t want to insert his closer with his team down by two runs.

And here’s the kicker: Help is anything but on the way, at least from outside the organization. The asking price for relief pitching right now is insanely high, and it would do the Sox little good to gamble on an arm by giving up one or two prized prospects, especially because one bullpen hurler might not be enough.

Super Felix?

So the Sox are going to have to look internally for a solution. Michael Bowden, perhaps. Maybe Felix Doubront. But the prospect of throwing untested youngsters into the heat of a pennant race has the potential to combust faster than you can say Eric Gagne.

So was the weekend meltdown in Seattle the beginning of the end, or just another frustrating four-game stretch in a long season that still has more than 60 games remaining?

The optimist in me says the latter, especially with Victor Martinez coming back tonight and further reinforcements in the form of Dustin Pedroia on the way soon. And if the Sox can sneak into the postseason, they have perhaps the deepest starting rotation in baseball to lean on at a time when good starting pitching trumps all.

But the pessimist in me wonders how this team will make up any ground if it can’t hold a lead beyond the sixth inning the rest of the way. Okajima’s effort on Sunday was not only ugly, but also frightening, because Francona had nowhere to turn and everyone – both on the field and off – knew it.

And there’s nothing comedic about that.

And yet, next week Ortiz will take part in both the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game, headlining a list of six Red Sox selected to the midsummer classic. Dustin Pedroia and Victor Martinez were also selected, while Adrian Beltre and pitchers Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz received their first career nods.

(Reuters Photo)

Of course, you can cross-reference that list with the disabled list and strike a handful of players off the active roster for next Tuesday. Pedroia and Martinez will both be absent, and Buchholz was just placed on the disabled list, as well, and will likely miss the game.

What’s more, the Sox could end up with seven representatives, as Kevin Youkilis – who certainly has the numbers to warrant a selection – is one of the five players eligible for the fan vote that will fill the final roster spot.

All-Stars are nothing new to the Sox, who have had a host of players in the game almost annually over the last handful of years. But this season’s list is particularly satisfying, given both how the team started and who it is taking part in the annual showcase.

Adrian Beltre took a one-year deal with the Red Sox for short money in hopes of resurrecting his career. All he’s done is hit better than .340 while driving in more than 50 runs. And Clay Buchholz entered his first full season as a starter with plenty of questions and enters the All-Star break in the top three in the league in both wins and ERA.

But the best story, at least to this observer, is Ortiz. He was being skewered by the Boston media after the second game – the SECOND game! – of the season against the Yankees, and what followed was a month long slump that had people wondering if the Sox would consider releasing Big Papi.

All he’s done since is turn white hot, anchoring a lineup that has had to play through injuries to just about every key player in the heart of the order. His batting average remains pedestrian, but his power and run production numbers no longer reflect a poor start. He’s deserving of the All-Star honor.

Globe Staff Photo / Jim Davis

Much was made on the Boston airwaves over the last few days of the fact that the Red Sox didn’t have anyone voted in by the fans to start the game. That was used as clear evidence that interest in the team is waning and that Red Sox Nation doesn’t have as strong a voice as it once had.

That may be true. In fact, it was almost inevitable. After the storybook seasons of 2004 and 2007 and the ensuing burst of new followers, there’s almost nowhere to go from a fan excitement perspective but down.

But the All-Star game proves the rest of the league is still paying attention. From new stars to old stars, putting six names on the American League roster is quite an accomplishment for a team that began the season playing .500 ball for the first 40 games.

And there’s no better representative in that regard than Ortiz. So tune in Monday to watch Big Papi take his cuts in the Home Run Derby.

For the Boston Red Sox.

Consider that “the other shoe”.

JD loves a mini vacation!

Admit it, you’ve been holding your breath like the rest of the Red Sox fan base. Outfielders have been dropping like flies – one might be able to bring Adrian Beltre up on serial charges at this point – and somehow Drew remained in right, a surprisingly durable performance in the face of all the carnage.

Consider that, following Drew’s injury last week, the Sox rolled out an outfield of Daniel Nava, Darnell McDonald and Bill Hall – and won the game.

For those keeping score at home, those guys were known during Spring Training as Who, Never Heard of Him and Whatshisname.

I’ve made no secret historically about my stance on Drew. I find him overpaid, overrated, and remarkably fragile. So for those of you wondering if I am going to harangue him for this stint on the D.L., the answer is simple:

Of course I am.

And here’s why. It’s not because he’s dealing with a nagging injury, or even that he’s hurt. It’s that he was willing to accept a spot on the disabled list with a wound that only days ago sounded like nothing, and he did so when the team needs bodies in the outfield more than ever.

The Sox are about to cruise through Colorado and San Francisco, cities with two of the better pitching staffs in all of baseball, and will face five right-handers in six games. If ever there was a need for Drew in the lineup, it’s right now. But he can’t be bothered with taking one for the team because he needs to make sure his boo-boo heals.

Give me a break. Mike Cameron is battling a sports hernia that will require surgery at the end of the season and it’s killing him to miss games. There was a great story at Boston.com today highlighting how much Cameron is hurting – both physically and mentally – and how he aches to return to the field.

And then there’s Drew, who tweaked a hamstring in a way so minor Terry Francona indicated days ago that there was almost no chance Drew was going on the D.L. Then, with a pair of critical series on the horizon and the Sox already remarkably short-handed, Drew volunteers to sit ‘em out.

Thanks, J.D.

It’s just the latest example. Drew can’t be bothered to suit up if his shoelaces aren’t the same length or if his fingernail is chipped. It’s no wonder many on the Boston radio airwaves have dubbed him Nancy. The man, officially, has no heart. And zero capacity to put the team before his own concerns.

So let the Drew Defenders tell me all about his superior defense and how he never takes a bad route to a ball and how he hit a couple of big home runs during the playoffs. Fine. Point taken.

But you take a walk into the Red Sox clubhouse and ask Mike Cameron, whose body hurts when he swings, runs and throws, what it would take for him to hit the disabled list right about now.

And then try to mount a J.D. Drew defense.

Until then, the prosecution rests.

For that reason it’s one of those baseball moments forever ingrained in my mind, as the replay was still dancing across the televisions in the hotel bar as our wedding party meandered in.

That historic feat took place in the same stadium that, barely more than two weeks earlier, Ramirez high-fived a fan sitting beyond the leftfield wall.

While turning a double play.

And that, in a nutshell, is the Manny Ramirez era in Boston, a bizarre blend of the superlative and the surreal. He was equal parts maniac and megastar, terrorizing opposing pitchers in one moment and terrorizing a dizzy Red Sox fan base in the next.

Photo courtesy of Laist.com

It’s no wonder, then, that Manny’s reception when he returns to Fenway Park for the first time since being traded in 2008 is the topic of much discussion. Ramirez will take the field as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night, and the polarizing outfielder will likely hear loudly from both those he endeared himself to and those he turned off.

It was different when Johnny Damon came back. He had traded in his Sox for the evil pinstripes of the hated Yankees, an inexcusable offense in the eyes of Red Sox Nation. It was different, too, when Nomar returned last summer, as he was the homegrown star returning to his roots to bury the hatchet.

But nobody’s quite sure what Manny’s here to do. Take a bathroom break in the leftfield wall again, perhaps? Cutoff a throw from the centerfielder standing no more than 20 feet away? Stuff a water bottle in his back pocket, you know, just in case?

The entire Manny Ramirez saga was truly enthralling, a tale that spans two ownerships, two General Managers and two World Series titles. He’s both a World Series MVP and an accused steroid user, leading many to wonder which came first and where those paths may have intersected.

There’s no question the Red Sox would still be chasing the Curse of the Bambino had Ramirez never donned the uniform. But there’s also no question many around Boston would have fewer gray hairs.

The relationship, of course, did not end well. Manny’s distractions grew to be intolerable during 2008, when Boston decided it was better off shipping him to L.A. before an off-season in which his contract options would have been a hot button topic.

And Ramirez was often a malcontent, showing up late for Spring Training or failing to run out a ground ball or coming down with a mysterious and undiagnosable hamstring injury. His act was easier to swallow when he was good for 45 homers and 135 RBI a year; it became more grating when he was more of a 30-100 guy.

But Manny, along with Pedro, shifted the course of Red Sox history. That pair was the core of a team that turned the fate of the frustrated franchise forever, a feared bat and a transcendent hurler that made the Red Sox a joke no longer.

He also deserves credit for building David Ortiz – considered largely the opposite of Ramirez in terms of personality – into the hitter he was. It should also be noted that Big Papi has never truly regained the form he held when Manny was batting either in front of or behind him.

The bottom line is there’s plenty to cheer about from the Manny Ramirez era. And there’s certainly enough to remain angry about. For that reason I expect something of a mixed reception on Friday, though if I had to place a bet I’d put money on more cheers than boos.

Of course, we’re dealing with a man who once put his friend’s grill up for auction on eBay and made a cell phone call from inside the Green Monster during a pitching change.

So perhaps the question we should all be pondering isn’t how the fans are going to greet Manny so much as how Manny is going to greet the fans.