“Tough,’’ Adrian Beltre said, exhaling loudly. “We came [wanting] to at least win the series and hopefully take the three games, and it didn’t happen. But that’s in the past, and we have to do whatever we can do from now on to gain some ground.’’
The Sox had given themselves a chance to get back in the race by winning Friday. Then they let it go, first by dropping Saturday night’s game in dramatic fashion, then by losing last night’s game in a more mundane, though no less upsetting, fashion, pushing themselves 6 1/2 games behind the Yankees and Rays in the AL East and wild-card races.
Most dispiriting was the fact the Sox had wins within reach in each of the two losses.
“We’re still in it,’’ Beltre said. “Nobody said that we’re out. It’s no doubt that the longer we wait to get a streak, a positive streak, the more difficult it’s going to be. We’re trying to make it better sooner than later. Because if we wait for later, it’s going to be tough, and then we’re going to play in panic mode. We don’t want to do that.
“We haven’t gotten on a winning streak. If we do that, and hopefully they lose some games, and we’ll be right there. We still have six games against the Yankees. You never know what can happen.’’
Still, for Boston to steal even a chance at the postseason would nearly take a miracle at this point. And this team, crushed by injuries and misfortune, doesn’t appear to have a miracle left in it.
“It’s not probably going to cut it to just win series, so we have to get like seven, six, eight straight games to win,’’ Beltre said. Yes, it is crunch time now.
This was the time when John Lackey was supposed to shine. Lackey was the pitcher brought to Boston to pitch in such games. He had the big-game reputation, and yet little of that has been on display since he signed with the Sox. Instead, he came up small last night, allowing five runs on nine hits over 6 1/3 innings, the winning hit coming yet again from Dan Johnson.
The bigger hits, though, were home runs on bad fastballs that the Rays destroyed.
As Lackey said, “I felt way too good to give up five runs, for sure.’’
