With a loud thud, Red Sox fall

June 16, 2006|Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Red Sox are only a game out of first place. They return home for a big, fat nine-game homestand beginning Monday. They are ahead of last year's pace, when they landed a postseason berth for a franchise-record third consecutive season.

So how come it feels like the SS Francona is taking on water and there aren't enough lifeboats?

Maybe it's because the Sox have stopped hitting (six runs in 30 innings in the Metrodome), their pitching is shredding, and they've lost four straight games for the first time since May 2005.

The Twins beat the Sox again last night, 5-3, completing a three-game sweep of the Henrymen. Gigantic Venezuelan righthander Carlos Silva hog-tied Papa Jack's hitters for six innings and the Twins bullpen escaped some jams down the stretch. The frustrated Sox left 10 runners on base, six in the last three innings. Manny (0 for Minnesota) Ramírez fanned with the bases loaded in the eighth, and again with one aboard in the ninth for the final out.

There seemed to be no limit to the Sox' frustration. Twins fielders made great plays on hard-hit balls, and a certain David Ortiz home run was blocked -- Bill Russell-like -- by a loudspeaker in the sixth inning ( talk about your Sports Illustrated cover jinx!). Ortiz was held to a single, yet another man-made moment for baseball's pinball arcade. Naturally, Manny followed with a hard-hit, double-play grounder. The Sox scored a total of two runs off Twins starters in three games. Ortiz and Ramírez went 3 for 24 in Minnesota.

``Bad karma here," said Kevin Youkilis, who went 2 for 5 for his 23d multihit game of the year. ``This was just one of those series where luck was not on our side."

Sox manager Terry Francona had some choice words for the Metrodome.

``I hope for their sake they get a new ballpark," said Francona. ``This is major league baseball. The outcome of a game should never hinge on a speaker. That's stupid."

This series may have jump-started the heretofore moribund Twins. Minnesota took the opener when Jason Kubel ended a boffo pitching duel with a walkoff grand slam in the 12th. Sox righthander Matt Clement struggled mightily Wednesday and the Boston bullpen was routed in an 8-1 loss. Last night, the Twins completed the sweep, sending the free-falling Sox to Atlanta with their longest losing streak in almost 13 months. The Sox had not been swept by Minnesota since August 1994.

Tim Wakefield (4-8) figured to be the slump stopper in the finale. Boston's veteran knuckleballer loves the Medrodome. He was unbeaten in the kooky building since April 1999. Overall, he was 6-2 in nine starts under the Teflon roof.