Red Sox are left to wonder

They squander opportunities in loss to Halladay and Jays

July 04, 2005|Globe Staff

Mike Timlin stood before his locker yesterday evening, his son at his side, devastation the mood of the hour. Timlin, like Matt Clement, was crestfallen to learn he was not named to the American League All-Star team.

In Clement's case, the lack of an All-Star appointment was rather stunning. In Timlin's case, it was far less of a surprise, the evidence why on display yesterday during the ninth inning of Boston's 5-2 loss to a Toronto team that has taken eight of 11 against the Red Sox this year and thankfully, for Sox fans, will not show up on the schedule again until September.

Timlin entered in relief of Alan Embree with two outs and two aboard in the ninth, attempting to keep the Sox within 3-1. But Reed Johnson -- who else? -- came up and pounded a two-run triple off the Wall just to the left of the 379-foot sign. That doubled the Blue Jays' lead and improved Johnson's RBI total in his last six games against the Sox to 14.

Timlin's ERA (1.57) remains nothing shy of stellar, but a true measure of a reliever is how many runners he inherits and how many of those runners cross home plate. Including the two yesterday, Timlin has allowed 11 of 18, or 61 percent, of the runners he's inherited to score.

''I've been giving up everybody else's runs besides mine," said the 39-year-old righthander. ''I just can't do that. Our job is to stop the runners on base then. When you don't do that you aren't doing your job. And I haven't been doing my job."

That may or may not have cost the Sox the game yesterday. They scored only once in the ninth, but they did stage a near-comeback against closer Miguel Batista. With one out in the club's last at-bat, Trot Nixon walked, Jason Varitek singled, and John Olerud singled, knocking in Nixon to close the gap to 5-2. Bill Mueller then worked Batista for one of the better at-bats this season, finally hammering Batista's ninth offering to center for a single that loaded the bases.

But Mark Bellhorn -- who fanned in each of his three previous at-bats -- followed by popping up the first pitch he saw to second base, which got him booed for the second time in as many at-bats. Blue Jays manager John Gibbons replaced his closer, Batista, with lefty Scott Schoeneweis, who got Johnny Damon to pop out and leave the bases loaded.

And that, really, was the theme of the day yesterday.

In the first inning, David Ortiz's RBI single gave the Sox runners on first and third with one out. Manny Ramírez then popped to second, and Nixon bounced into a 4-6-3 double play.

In the fifth, Varitek reached on an error and Olerud walked with no outs. But Mueller flied to shallow center, Bellhorn struck out looking, and Damon grounded out. Again, two men left on base.