Crushing blows

Now, the Yankees are only four games in arrears, having swept the Cleveland Indians and knocked them out of first place in the AL Central, while the Sox were losing two of three here to the Orioles, who had not won a series against the Sox in more than two years. Both losses came in walkoff fashion, yesterday at the hands of the American Idiot (as he was called in Baltimore Magazine), Kevin Millar. The former Sox motivational speaker hit a three-run home run off Kyle Snyder after Miguel Tejada took Eric Gagne deep for a tying two-run homer in the eighth.

"[The Yankees are] playing a whole lot better than we are right now," said Curt Schilling, who was in line to win for the first time since coming off the disabled list last Tuesday until Gagne coughed up another lead. "It's that simple. They're winning, we're not. But the answers are in this room and we're going to find them."

Gagne has been anything but the solution since he arrived in a much-heralded trading-deadline deal with the Rangers. With the memory of Friday's flameout (four runs in a third of an inning) still fresh in the memory of another Sox-besotted crowd of 48,551 in Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Gagne entered with one out and a runner aboard in the eighth, Hideki Okajima having walked the leadoff man in the inning, Corey Patterson.

It took only one batter for Sox fans to join their French-speaking neighbors in muttering, "O mon Dieu." Gagne missed with his first two fastballs to Tejada, which drastically lessened his options. He threw five more fastballs, the fastest registering 96 on the scoreboard radar gun. Tejada connected with No. 7, driving the ball into the left-center-field seats.

"I don't care if the gun showed 120," said a wrathful Gagne, whose ire was directed at only one target. "It doesn't matter. I'm not doing my job. It's very simple. It doesn't matter. I'm not making pitches. I'm going out there and messing the whole thing up. Everybody's out there playing a great ballgame, and I'm going out there and messing it up. That's not what I do. I need to step up my game."

Getting old?