Last year, the poisoned arrow was shot through the Red Sox’ heart by Aaron Boone. Certainly, the long-suffering citizens of Red Sox Nation thought it couldn’t get any worse than that.

Last night, it got worse. After an off-season in which all their problems were isolated, all the solutions identified, all the replacements aggressively pursued and acquired, the Red Sox last night were shot down again.

This time, the names were Jon Lieber, a pitcher who had not started a major league game for two years before the Yankees gave him a start this May, and John Olerud, a first baseman whose skills were so diminished that even the lowly Seattle Mariners had no use for him this past August.

The American League Championship Series between the Red Sox and Yankees may not be officially over yet, but it might as well be after last night’s 3-1 Yankee victory at the Stadium. Lieber thoroughly out pitched Pedro Martinez, with a big assist from Olerud, who slammed a sixth-inning Martinez fastball into the right-field seats for a two-run homer that provided the ultimate margin of victory.

Now, the Yankees, who were supposedly thin in the pitching rotation and outgunned at the plate by the potent Red Sox lineup, have beaten the Red Sox’ Plan A, Curt Schilling, in Game 1 on Tuesday, and their Plan B, Martinez, last night. Tomorrow night at Fenway Park, the Red Sox go to Plan C, Bronson Arroyo, and unless things change in a hurry, will soon go to Plan D, which is the golf course.

“Pedro misfired a little bit and the ball came back over the plate,” said Terry Francona, the Red Sox shell-shocked manager, to explain what went wrong against Olerud in the sixth inning.

The same can be said about Red Sox owner John Henry, CEO Larry Lucchino, and GM Theo Epstein, who spent all of their winter and much of their summer trying to retool a team that had fallen just short of unseating the Yankees last year, by the length of Boone’s home run, which ended the 2003 ALCS in the 11th inning of the seventh game.

They went shopping for a front-line starter to serve as a co ace with Martinez and came back with Schilling. They needed a closer to replace the hapless Byun-Young Kim and came up with Keith Foulke.

At midseason this year, they sought to clear the poisonous stench that was hanging in their clubhouse air and shore up their leaky defense in the process, by trading away shortstop Nomar Garciaparra for Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz.

And over the second half of the season, the Boston Red Sox ran up the best record in baseball, 42-18 over the last 60 games. They seemed to have eliminated all possible reason for defeat, or at least any remaining excuses for same.

But it turns out the Red Sox still had not eradicated their penchant for losing games they have no business losing, at the hands of players who have no business beating them.

Lieber, who had Tommy John surgery on his elbow in August 2002, was the kind of luxury pickup only the Yankees could afford, an extra arm that might never actually throw a baseball for them. But he turned in a solid regular season – 14-8, 4.33 ERA – and last night, held the Red Sox to three quiet hits in seven innings. On a team overflowing with big-ticket items, Lieber was a perfectly serviceable tool found in a markdown bin.

Olerud, on the other hand, was a diamond plucked out of a dumpster. A career .295 hitter, Olerud was unceremoniously dumped by the Mariners after two tours of duty. At 36, it appeared he was done. Then came the series of woes that took Jason Giambi out of the Yankee roster, and a call from Yankee GM Brian Cashman to Olerud.

“It’s definitely hard when you get released by a ball club, its not anything you want to have happen to you,” Olerud said. “I was hoping I’d have another opportunity to play, but you get released and you don’t know if anyone will be interested in you.”

The Yankees looked at Fred McGriff along with Olerud and, according to Joe Torre, “The feeling was Olerud had been more of a regular player. I talked to John and he was a quality guy. He had played in New York so he knew what it was all about. It turned out to be huge. It was a good get for us.”

Last night, Olerud was in a spot hitters generally would prefer not to be – down 1-2 in the count against Martinez, who was throwing for his, and his team’s, continued life.

“I got a fastball up and in and I was lucky to be able to hit it well,” Olerud said.

Olerud’s home run was just the last bit of bad news for a Red sox team that must know feel as if it has seen this movie before, and it will not end well. Before the game, Epstein and the team physician held a news conference to announce that Schilling was suffering from a torn sheath around a tendon in his right ankle, and if this were any time other than October, he would be headed for an operating room.

But according to Epstein, if the Red Sox doctor is able to “stabilize” the tendon, Schilling will try again, perhaps in Game 5, if there is one. But Schilling, who won 21 games in the regular season, was not the answer in Game 1, and Pedro was not the answer in Game 2.

Meanwhile, two guys who weren’t even supposed to be playing baseball this year were posing problems the new, revamped Red Sox could not handle. To the names Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone, add Jon Lieber and John Olerud. As usual, it’s never the guys you expect it to be who wind up killing the Red Sox. They, and their fans, must be wondering who will be next?

Mr. Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show heard Monday-Friday from 4-7 p.m. on 1050 ESPN radio.