They have been in this spot before. A tight spot, and an unforgiving one. The Red Sox have been down and have made it out, as recently as last year's American League Championship Series, when they yielded three of the first four games to the Indians, and in the 2004 ALCS, when they lost the first three games to the Yankees. At those points, it did not seem as if the Sox were on the brink of a comeback.
Nor does it seem that way today.
As the Red Sox wake up on their day off, perhaps a merciful one from their perspective, they sit in a precarious position, having gone down, three games to one, to the Rays with a demoralizing 13-4 loss last night.
Not only are the Sox faced with a must-win game tomorrow, as Daisuke Matsuzaka attempts to put the packed bags to good use with a trip to St. Petersburg, Fla., but this team has shown no signs of being able to come out of what is now a three-game slump.
"We're down, 3-1, and if we lose, we're going home," Dustin Pedroia said. "Hit the panic button.
"You've got to play better. That's it. That's all I've got for you guys. Play better, we win."
There is no pitching (starting or relieving), as the Sox demonstrated by allowing 13 runs to the Rays in front of 38,133 stunned fans in Fenway Park. There is little hitting, as they demonstrated in managing just six hits in 7 1/3 innings off Andy Sonnanstine with bats that seem to be ice cold. The only major offensive contribution for the first six innings was a solo home run from a backup catcher who will not be in the lineup without Tim Wakefield on the mound, replaced instead with one who is hitless in the ALCS.
"It's very deflating, frustrating, whatever word you want to use," said Kevin Cash, author of that home run. "We've got to regroup.
"We were down in this situation last year. That's a huge factor. Everybody in here still believes that we're going to go out and win Game 5 and so on. We've got to take the attitude that we're playing Thursday, and we'll see what happens after that."
Though David Ortiz put the brakes on his journey from playoff Adonis to mere mortal when he woke up the crowd with a triple in the seventh inning, breaking an 0-for-14 slump, it was just another futile moment in a futile series for the Sox.
Since they sneaked by the Rays in Game 1 and lost in extras in Game 2, the past two games have been embarrassing for the Sox. The Rays have scored 22 runs in those two games, the Sox just five.
"Papi doesn't come to hit with men on base all the time," Ortiz said. "I might come to hit maybe four or five times the whole series with men on second.
"I'm not going to change the game when you have a lead by nine, 10 runs, whatever they're scoring right now. What we need to focus on now is to stop their offense, and make sure the game happens like the first one.
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