Red Sox trip on Okajima's slip

May 15, 2008|Gordon Edes, Globe Staff

BALTIMORE - Like tourists having a grand time until they discovered their wallets had been lifted, the Red Sox returned home last night wondering how the wheels suddenly came off on a trip that began with such promise.

Then they walked in the front door to discover that while they were away, somebody had started foreclosure proceedings on the place they'd occupied for the better part of the last month, first in the American League East.

After five Sox losses in their last six games, including a 6-3 defeat to the Baltimore Orioles yesterday in which they gave away a three-run lead for the third straight game, the top spot in the East has been wrested away by the Tampa Bay Rays, who in the past have never been allowed in the neighborhood. A lead that had reached 3 1/2 games in Detroit is now a half-game deficit after the Yankees defeated the Rays, 2-1, last night.

The next thing you know, those devilish Rays are going to be demanding John Henry's yacht, too.

That fan in a Boston jersey who high-fived Manny Ramírez after the Sox left fielder's terrific catch at the wall in the fourth inning, which Ramírez turned into a double play? The fan couldn't reach Hideki Okajima after the Sox reliever gave up a grand slam to Jay Payton in the seventh that erased what was left of the lead the Sox had built behind Jon Lester (six innings, two runs). Just as well, because instead of the lucky necklace he customarily wears, Okajima might have found someone's fingers wrapped around his Adam's apple.

"I'm not real concerned," said catcher Jason Varitek, who had complemented the first-inning run Jacoby Ellsbury crafted with his feet (infield hit, stolen base, sprint home on Dustin Pedroia's single) with one of two solo home runs the Sox hit off Daniel Cabrera, Varitek's coming in the fifth, Mike Lowell's in the sixth. "We've been playing better than the losing. We just need to find a way to grind out a win."

Varitek's words were apt to inspire some eye-rolling on a day when the Sox hit into four double plays and Okajima gave up Payton's slam, the Orioles having loaded the bases with two outs and nobody on against Javier Lopez and Craig Hansen. Last season, Okajima treated inherited runners as if they were a personal heirloom, not to be trifled with. Of the 28 runners he inherited in 2007, only four scored.

So far this season, Okajima has treated inherited runners like junk you get rid of at a flea market: Of the 14 runners on base when he has entered to pitch, 11 have scored. That's 78.6 percent, the worst rate in the majors.

"Jay did a good job of staying back on a changeup," Varitek said of Payton's slam, the first by an Oriole since Scott Moore took Daisuke Matsuzaka out of the house last Sept. 8.