Given the combination of the timing and the circumstances, Boston's firing of manager Jimy Williams on Thursday ranks as one of the most shocking dismissals in recent baseball memory.

Make no mistake, there has been no love lost between Williams and general manager Dan Duquette for a couple of years now, and the contract extension signed by The Duke earlier this summer pretty much signaled that Williams was a short-timer with the Red Sox.

But this short?

Williams is a legitimate candidate for American League Manager of the Year. He has maneuvered the Red Sox into playoff contention despite playing most of the season without All-Star Nomar Garciaparra and playing the past several weeks without ace Pedro Martinez. Throw in the absence of catcher Jason Varitek, the emotional tempest Carl Everett brings to the clubhouse and the acerbic manner in which Duquette conducts himself (and the fact that he has publicly pulled the rug out from beneath Williams on a couple of occasions), and this is one of baseball's most dysfunctional organizations.

Granted, the five games by which the Red Sox trailed the New York Yankees at the time of Williams' was their largest deficit of the season. And they have lost six of their past seven games.

Still, the Sox are just 2½ games behind Oakland in the wild-card race.

What this move should do is direct 100 percent of the responsibility for what happens now onto Duquette's shoulders. This is his baby now, and his alone. The power struggle is over and, for better or worse for those in Boston, The Duke is The King.

But whether he can find someone with more acumen than Williams is, at this point, problematical.