You want the good news or the bad news?
Sorry. There is no good news. Yesterday was another sorry affair at Fenway Park for the Red Sox, the only difference being this one was in the daylight.
The Sox haven’t been able to defeat the Rays in the evening and they haven’t been able to beat them in the afternoon. Perhaps playing them in the late morning today will change their luck.
“We can show up at 6 in the morning or midnight,’’ fussed manager Terry Francona. “We’d rather play with a lead.’’
It’s Patriots Day, and already they’re five games out. There’s some run prevention going on, all right, but it’s the wrong kind, as yesterday’s 7-1 loss to the Rays showed.
“Obviously, no one’s happy,’’ said Jon Lester, the losing pitcher. “This isn’t the way we envisioned starting the season.’’
This isn’t the way anyone envisioned starting this season. You know things are bad when the ballpark is half-empty by “Sweet Caroline’’ time. Folks had sat through the damp and the chill long enough. There couldn’t have been more than 10,000 people present to see the Sox spoil the shutout with a meaningless run off reliever Mike Ekstrom in the ninth.
Lester’s well-documented April woes continued. Carlos Pena and B.J. Upton each hit home runs onto the roof of the center field camera. Lester walked the No. 9 man and the leadoff hitter to set the table for two runs in the third. Both he and Francona insisted he had the proverbial “good stuff,’’ but he made fundamental mistakes, and it’s clear the Rays have regained that ’08 groove. Make mistakes, and you will pay.
To borrow a football phrase, the Sox had trouble in all three phases of the game. The pitching wasn’t good enough. The batters did next to nothing with Tampa Bay starter Matt Garza, who gave up just four scattered hits while shutting them out through eight innings and facing the minimum 21 men through seven. And the defense once again was less than satisfactory.
Mike Cameron had another tough outing in center, this time failing to track a blow off the bat of Evan Longoria that went for a leadoff double in the second. Cameron took a tentative step forward, and next thing you know the ball was sailing over his head. One pitch later it was 2-0 when Pena launched his fifth career homer off Lester on a ball that went in the same general direction as Longoria’s — only farther.
The skipper went to Cameron’s partial defense. “The ball carried farther than he thought,’’ Francona said. “I’d like to see it again. The wind was carrying every which way. But in his defense, I don’t think that’s the freshest he’s ever felt.’’ Cameron did just get through passing a kidney stone. We probably should cut him significant slack.
