So long, Manny

Ramirez dealt to Dodgers in multi-team swap; Outfielder Bay headed to Boston from Pittsburgh

 The Sox went into yesterday with a bullpen in need of reinforcements and a disgruntled superstar in left field.

After a final afternoon flurry of rumors and possible destinations, the Olde Town Team’s bullpen still needs a veteran arm — but Manny Ramirez, in search of “mental peace,” has been shipped off to the sun and sand of Los Angeles.

In a three-way deal that went down to the deadline, Sox General Manager Theo Epstein pulled the trigger on a complicated transaction that sent Ramirez to the Dodgers, and jettisoned right-handed reliever Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss to the Pirates in the process.

Just hours after Thursday’s 4 p.m. deadline, both Pirates and Dodgers officials confirmed that the deal had taken place — a three-team swap that rose from the ashes of a failed deal between the Sox, Pirates and Marlins that simply got too big and complicated.

Ramirez quietly cleaned out his locker and exited Fenway Park during the dinner hour.

“We felt we had the right deal and moved on [it],” Pirates GM Neal Huntington told reporters. “You take a player who has performed the way Jason Bay has performed off the team, and you bring in three young players, right now it's a shock.”

In return for a future first ballot Hall of Famer and a pair of up-and-comers, the Sox received All-Star left fielder Jason Bay. The 29-year-old Bucs outfielder is hitting .282 with 22 home runs and 64 RBIs this season, and has twice before in his five year career eclipsed the magical 30 home runs and 100 RBIs plateau.

The deal also puts an unsatisfying exclamation point on the “Manny Being Manny” era in Boston — a seven-plus season stretch that saw Ramirez put up a .312 batting average along with 274 home runs and 868 RBIs while leading the Sox to two World Series titles.

In the end, the Sox simply tired of Ramirez’s badly disguised attempts to extricate himself from a pair of $20 million Sox club options for the 2009 and 2010 seasons. The “sore knee,” the loafing up the first baseline and the pointed comments aimed at Sox management/ownership were all designed to convince the Sox not to pick up the options, and Ramirez finally accomplished his mission.