Another Blown Opportunity by Red Sox

The Red Sox continued to struggle on Wednesday night as they dropped yet another contest to the Baltimore Orioles by a score of 6-4.  They not only lost the ball game, but also lost the series, dropping three of four to Baltimore.  With it goes another opportunity to pad their lead in the Wild Card race.

Josh Beckett took the ball for the Sox and with it came renewed confidence and optimism.  The game was going in the Red Sox favor, leading 4-2 in the seventh with Beckett still pitching and looking sharp.  With one runner on, the Orioles’ Mark Reynolds tagged a Beckett curveball and parked it into the Monster seats tying the game at four.  One inning later and with two on, Beckett gave up a two run single to the wiley old veteran Vladimir Guerrero and that was all the O’s would need in this one. 

Beckett took the loss after going 7.1 innings, giving up 6 earned runs on seven hits.  He did strike out 8 batters while only offering one free pass.  It was difficult to sit and watch Beckett self destruct in the late stages of this game.  He’s been so good this year and usually so reliable that you had a sense of comfort with him in the game in the seventh with the Red Sox leading.

But it shouldn’t be surprising that Beckett coughed up four runs in two innings.  He’s just following suit on a team that has completely collapsed in the final month of the season.  Last night it was Jonathan Papelbon who was the scapegoat for the loss.  Tonight it was Beckett.  On numerous occassions it’s been reliever Daniel Bard.  John Lackey leads the way with how many times he’s been to blame for a loss and even the rock, Jon Lester has been uncharacteristically bad in September.   Perhaps Beckett doesn’t know any better and is in the same rut as the rest of the club. 

From an offensive standpoint, Carl Crawford had a nice night, going 3 for 4 and was just a home run away from hitting for the cycle. 

The Rays lost earlier in game one of a doubleheader in New York, so the Sox had the perfect opportunity to increase their Wild Card lead to three games with only 6 games left.  Now, thanks to yet another loss, the Red Sox and Rays have company as the LA Angels are only 2.5 games back in the Wild Card.  Suddenly it’s a little too crowded at the top of the Wild Card standings.

This isn’t just a tail spin, it’s a death spiral.  We’re past the “all hands on deck” cry for help.  Heck, we don’t have any hands left.  The only ones that can get themselves out of this free fall is the 25+ players in the clubhouse and the way things are going it doesn’t look good.

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