Boston Red Sox: Josh Beckett's Failures Mean the Sox Must Overpay for Roy Oswalt

Josh Beckett is obviously on the back nine of his time with the Boston Red Sox.

One way or another, he is going to be out of Boston by the time the trade deadline rolls around. As much as general manager Ben Cherington may want to try and salvage the player and his contract, this is a situation where the player is beyond reproach.

The Red Sox have a worse record than the Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs. They've lost 11 of their last 12 games in Fenway.

Historically, a team turns to their ace to stop the bleeding.

How can the Red Sox turn to their "ace" in Beckett if he is the one holding the knife to their wrist?

His 2-4 record, 5.97 ERA and 1.38 WHIP combined with his Kenny Powers-esque attitude will make trading him extremely difficult.

Not to mention the roughly $40 million left on his contract.

The Red Sox will likely be forced to eat a majority of his contract and get back an OK player in return. If they are looking to land pitching, the time has truly come to blow away Roy Oswalt with a contract offer.

Oswalt owns a career 3.21 ERA. Even if that goes up a whole point to 4.21, he'll still have the lowest ERA on the Red Sox pitching staff.

In Philly, a town just as tough to pitch in as Boston, Oswalt had a 2.96 ERA.

If a pitcher in Boston had a sub-3.00 ERA this season, the city would be elated.

Beckett needs to go, that much is obvious.

There is a very capable replacement out there that will only cost the team money, not prospects or players. They need to just up their offer and blow Oswalt out of the water.

This is a move that should have been made over the winter and Cherington blew it then. 

This can be the team's first act of contrition in righting this otherwise sinking ship.