Black mark for pen

The Sox bullpen's ERA swelled 56 points to 5.27, worst in the American League. Embree was branded with the loss, the bullpen's 10th, which is the most of any AL team based outside of Kansas City, Mo. Opponents have taken Sox relievers deep 19 times this season, which, not including last night's late games, was fewer than only Seattle and Kansas City, both with 21. Furthermore, the Sox relief corps is the only unit in the AL yet to record 100 strikeouts. The Sox have 96, and the AL average, entering yesterday, was 121.

This loss wasn't all on Embree, but, as he acknowledged, ''I was the first one. I set the tone for the game. I gave the first run to those guys. There shouldn't have been that pressure [on the bullpen].

''Right now I would expect me fully to be our mopup guy until I prove I'm capable of going out there and getting the job done. Right now I don't feel like a productive member of this team."

Embree's seventh-inning stay, on a day the Sox played for a painfully long 3 hours 51 minutes, was rather brief. Adam Kennedy doubled, Chone Figgins struck out, Kennedy stole third, Darin Erstad knocked in Kennedy with a single, and Steve Finley singled. And then, on a fastball that Embree said was well located on the outer third of the plate and low, Garret Anderson hit a wringing liner -- high on the giddy, low on the up -- into the Sox bullpen.

Embree, now 1-3 with a 6.75 ERA, has allowed seven home runs this year in 24 innings, after allowing that many in 52 1/3 innings all last season. He's reached double-digit homer totals only once in his career, in 1996 with Cleveland, when he was taken deep 10 times in 31 innings. In his last six appearances, spanning 4 2/3 innings, he's given up 10 runs, including three home runs: a walkoff blast to Toronto's Reed Johnson, a game-deciding homer to the Yankees' Gary Sheffield, and a momentum-changing blast to Anderson.