Oh (and 5) My God! Sox Lose Again!

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Scott Cordischi, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

What a disastrous start to the 2011 season! We can keep trying to convince ourselves that there’s a lot of baseball left to be played, but at some point the local 9 needs to stop the bleeding.

The Boston Red Sox finally received a performance from one of their starting pitchers worthy of a win but the bats failed to produce when it mattered most and the bullpen poured gas on the fire. It all led to an 8-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians dropping everyone’s preseason favorite to win it all to 0-5 on the year.

Things didn’t start well for Diasuke Matsuzaka and the Sox who fell behind 2-0 in the first on a Shin-Soo Choo 2-run homerun. But Matsuzaka settled into the game after that and gave the type of performance you would hope to receive from your fifth starter.

Matsuzaka threw 96 pitches in his 5 innings of work. He gave up 6 hits and 3 earned runs while walking 3 and striking out 2. He left the game after 5 with his team trailing 3-2 when Boston manager Terry Francona handed the ball to his bullpen.

Dennys Reyes came in to start the 6th and was an absolute disaster! Reyes didn’t record a single out. In 12 pitches he hit two batters and walked another before being pulled in favor of Dan Wheeler.

Wheeler wasn’t perfect but he did induce what should have been a double-play ball off the bat of Mickey Brantley. With the bases loaded, Brantley’s liner to third was knocked down by Kevin Youkilis who picked up the ball and tagged third before throwing to catcher Jason Varitek at home. Varitek, not knowing that the force was off, failed to tag Travis Buck allowing Cleveland’s fourth run of the game to score.

To make matters worse, the next batter - Asdrubal Cabrera took Wheeler deep to right for a 3-run homerun to blow the game wide open giving Cleveland a 7-2 lead in the 6th.

Boston’s offense tried to battle back as Adrian Gonzalez hit his first homerun in a Red Sox uniform when he took Frank Herrmann deep for a 2-run shot to pull Boston to within 3 at 7-4.

But it was not enough as the Sox dropped to a dismal 0-5 to start the season. They will try to avoid being swept for the second time this season when Jon Lester takes the mound today at 12:05pm against the Tribe’s Fausto Carmona.

At the very best, the Sox will return to Boston at 1-5 for their home-opener tomorrow afternoon against the New York Yankees.

NOTES:

-Not only has it been a rough start for the Red Sox, but their television announcers are off to a shaky start as well. Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy are as good of a tandem as there is in baseball but they were asleep at the switch last night on the double-play that wasn’t off the bat of Mickey Brantley in the 6th. When Youkilis tagged third it was obvious that the force at home was off meaning Varitek needed to tag Buck. Unfortunately, Orsillo and Remy were as out to lunch on the play as Varitek was as neither could understand why Buck wasn’t ruled out. It was obvious that a NESN producer finally informed them through their earpiece what had happened as they eventually corrected their mistake. But anyone who watched it live knew what was happening immediately. I’m surprised that Wally the Green Monster didn’t tell them what was happening!

-Carl Crawford had his first good game in a Boston uniform going 2-3 at the plate while registering his first two stolen bases of the season.

-Is it just a coincidence that the best performance of a Boston starter this season just happened to come with Jason Varitek behind the plate? Just asking.

-Thanks to the Orioles first loss of the season (7-3 vs. Detroit), Boston remains 4 game out of first place in the A.L. East behind both Baltimore and Toronto. The Yankees (3-2) were rained out at home against the Minnesota Twins.

-Boston’s bullpen gave up 5 runs in 3 innings of work after Matsuzaka held the Tribe to just 3 runs over 5 innings of work.

-WEEI’s John Dennis and Gerry Callahan both assured Red Sox fans Wednesday morning that this team would be above .500 by April 30th. Really? That would mean that they would have to go 14-7 over their next 21 games which includes a west coast road trip. What are they seeing that I’m not to make them think that this team will suddenly take off on a lengthy winning streak?