It's time to appreciate the Red Sox's Steven Wright: Baseball's newest knuckleballing wonder

Hidden in the ancient tomes and grimoires of baseball are the necessary spells and incantations necessary to throw a decent knuckleball. It's a pitch that, just as the alchemists of old had to sacrifice their lives and well-being in attempting to turn base metals into gold, requires pitchers to do the same. 

R.A. Dickey turned to the knuckleball only after his career as a flame-thrower stalled out. 

Tim Wakefield was an infielder whose Minor League career was stalled out before he began the dangerous experimentation with the ball of dancing and lights. 

Even the credited inventor of the pitch, Toad Ramsey, a hard-drinking player who really earned the name "Toad" with his rather portly-shaped body, only came upon the pitch after he severed the tendon in his index finger with a trowel. 

Suffice it to say, it's more of a safety release -- the baseballing equivalent of the complex algebra used by Tom Hanks on Apollo 11 to get back to earth. 

There's a new member of this dark and unholy fraternity staking his claim this season: Red Sox hurler Steven Wright. After pitching just 34 1/3 innings between 2013-14, Wright has become a key part of the Red Sox rotation and relief corps. Taking on the role of the super swingman/tower guard that Wakefield used to keep, Wright has started eight games, relieved in seven others, and is 5-4 with a 4.12 ERA in a career-high 67 2/3 innings. That would be the second-best ERA in the rotation were he a full-time starter. 

The real question though: Can you select the correct Steven Wright?

Answer: The pitcher is on the right! 

Originally drafted by the Indians in the second round of the 2006 draft, Wright was, once again, another pitcher with a traditional arsenal. With Wright's career stalling out in the upper Minors, Indians president Mark Shapiro set him up with knuckleballing legend Tom Candiotti. It was a process quite similar to Joseph Campbell's monomyth, where the hero must meet with a mentor before crossing over from our world to the special world -- this one ruled by fluttering pitches in a gravity-free land. 

By learning the pitch, Wright was able to join the Holy Order of the Knuckleball and take up baseballs against the evils of the world. He was even knighted by their king, Charlie Hough: 

Nothing better then spending time and learning from one of the best knuckleballers of all time Mr. Charlie Hough pic.twitter.com/KhdbzQIVcY

- Steven Wright (@Knucklepuck23) February 8, 2015

Part of Wright's success this season comes from the further development of his pitch as he has begun to mix speeds. In the past, Wright mainly threw his hard knuckleball in the mid-70s, but this season, Wright has varied the pitch from the mid-60s to the upper-70s. Said the hurler during Spring Training: 

One of those is apparently a hyper-dense ball that drops from the shoulders to the shoe-tops in one attosecond.

And he has even used it to strike out Mike Trout, the slayer of all fast or slow-moving baseballs in the land. 

After being recalled from Triple-A in July and inserted into the rotation, he has been on fire in his last two starts. Against the White Sox and Yankees, Wright has combined to pitch 15 innings, giving up just three runs and striking out 17 batters. Even better, he's walked only four batters in that time. 

During that time, he's made Alexei Ramirez's knees buckle so hard that they quoted Arrested Development.

And against the Yankees on Aug. 5, when he faced off against the team's top prospect and polar opposite to Wright, Luis Severino, the knuckleballer was at his very best. He threw pitches that moved so much they had to apply for a special license as they were conducting business across state lines. 

And just watch how this pitch flutters from inside and off the plate, before changing direction and landing in the strike zone. It's a pitch that has touched the eternal, a kind of consciousness being imbued upon it by its creator. 

When runners do get on base against him, there's no getting past him either. With the quick-twitch reflexes of a cat (or Bartolo Colon), Wright will chase you down. This is the man living up to his responsibility as keeper of the realm. 

And just like Merlin and the other wizards who have come before, Wright may only get better as he works on his mystical dragonslaying pitch. Sure, he may not win 200 games like Wakefield or pick up a Cy Young like Dickey, but then again, he may also pitch 40,000 years, tossing up an endless assortment of floating pitches against the humanoid extraterrestrials that will join the Major Leagues in the year 2781.

Or, if needed, Wright will be there to protect the living with a bucketful of knucklers when the dead rise from their tombs, hungry for living flesh. His ability to continue throwing unpredictable pitches for days at a time will be a highly useful skill in the event of a zombie apocalypse. 

Or, he could even just pitch for another five-to-ten years and then retire to open a car dealership and raise a family. 

After all, just as you can't predict what the knuckleball will do pitch-to-pitch, you can't really predict the grand knuckleballer's career, either. We'll see if we can get a glimpse into his future as he takes that dancing wonderball and squares off against the Marlins at 7:10 pm ET.