KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- They need to beat up the Kansas Cities on the schedule before they run into the Detroits, New Yorks, Los Angeleses, Seattles, and Oaklands, which they will see on that schedule starting next week and running through the end of the month.
But somewhere along the way, the Red Sox, 6-4 losers last night, forgot that the Royals are a major league team capable of beating you if you 1. make bad pitches and 2. make bad plays.
The Sox also lost second baseman Mark Loretta, who has a bruised left elbow after being hit by a pitch from Royals starter Luke Hudson in the fifth inning. Loretta left the game in the bottom of the inning, but X-rays came back negative and he is termed day-to-day by the medical staff.
And while David Ortiz launched his 41st homer to pull the Sox within one run in the seventh, the Royals answered with an Emil Brown homer in the bottom of the inning (off Rudy Seanez) to push the lead back to two runs.
With a much-needed sweep no longer possible, the slumping Sox (12-13 since the All-Star break) will go for two out of three as they try to keep pace with Chicago and Minnesota in the wild-card race. Despite the tough evening, they did not lose ground to the Yankees, who lost in extra innings to the White Sox.
The Sox needed a mature-beyond-his-years outing from rookie Jon Lester, but he acted his age. He allowed six hits, three walks, and hit a batter, throwing 105 pitches through five innings. He left trailing, 4-3, and reliever Craig Hansen didn’t help himself when he made a throwing error on Angel Berroa’s sacrifice bunt that led to the Royals’ fifth run in the sixth inning. That run scored on a short sacrifice fly to center by Mark Grudzielanek, as Coco Crisp made a very weak throw to the cutoff man at second base.
After Ortiz’s blast — 422 feet to straightaway center — cut the gap to one, Brown struck on a 3-and-2 fastball to make it a two-run game again. This after his bases-loaded grounder in the fifth just sneaked under Alex Gonzalez’s glove on a diving attempt.
‘‘I was playing him straight up, and I took the dive and it was maybe an inch under my glove,’’ said Gonzalez, who nearly got to a ball that most shortstops would never dream of getting close to.
Wily Mo Peña blasted a 451-foot homer to left in the fourth inning — the 13th-longest homer in Kauffman Stadium history — but it wasn’t enough.
After the game, Ortiz was studying video with Peña and hitting coach Ron Jackson. Ortiz had a chance for ninth-inning heroics but he was walked by reliever Ambiorix Burgos with one on and one out. Manny Ramírez then struck out and Kevin Youkilis grounded into a forceout to third to end the game.
