Another day, another disheartening loss

Texas 2, Sox 1
WP: Loe (5-6)
LP: Tavarez (5-6)
SV: Gagne (10)
HRs: None


SUMMARY
The Sox lost yet another one-run game as Julian Tavarez turned in a quality start, but the Boston offense continues to be stuck in neutral; the team has scored just eight runs in its last four games.

#1 STUNNER Kam Loe 6IP, 6H, 1ER, 2BB, 1K
Add Loe's name to the pile of pitchers who have gone from obscurity to All Star abilty against the Sox. To his credit, Loe has now won four straight after a putrid 1-6 start.

PAN's FAUN the whole Boston team
No one person is to blame for this current crop of god-awful games. From poor defense (two errors and a number of sloppy plays) to an uncanny knack for leaving a ton of men on base (11 more yesterday), this team is struggling in a big way right now.

Thankfully they have that large division lead to soften the severity of the problems.

RECAP
After a few hours of playing video games (XBOX 360's The Darkness-RENT!), watering the lawn & garden and watching a terrible movie ("The Messengers"-don't rent!), my perspective has returned and I find I'm able to rationally discuss the game and what has happened to our once awesome Sox.

Nothing like playing a video game that has a demon-possessed mafioso traipsing around NYC on a bloodthirsty, murderous rampage, devouring the hearts of all the goons and goombahs who dare challenge him to clear the head after a loss like that.

The Sox sudden inability to put runs on the board, and consequently win some of these close games they have been involved in over the past few weeks, may have reached Level Orange with today's loss to the (not so lowly) Rangers.

Stop me if you've heard this before: a struggling/no name pitcher shuts down the potent Sox offense, while the Boston starter does a good enough job to get the win but the lack of run support makes it virtually impossible to do so.

Sound like a broken record? That's because of the 27 games Boston played in June, an astonishing 12 of them were one run affairs, and of those dozen the Sox won only half.

Not exactly a stellar percentage for a championship-caliber club.

Even more amazing is the fact that they have been involved in two 1-0 games (won both), one 2-0 game (won) and five 2-1 contests (3-2.)

That's a lot of low-scoring close games to be involved in in one month, especially for a team that supposedly possesses one of the best offenses in the majors.

Right now anyone would be hard pressed to believe that this team has a better offense than the D-Rays as once again a slew of missed scoring opportunities doomed the Sox on Sunday afternoon.

Tavarez (5.2IP, 7H, 2R, 1ER, 3BB, 2K), coming off a nightmare outing in Seattle, gave his team every chance to pull this one out by holding the high-powered offense to just one earned run (2 runs) through 5 2/3 innings.

The first run Texas scored was no fault of Julie's though, as Texas scored once in the fourth thanks to a single and two Boston errors.

Saturday night's hero Sammy Sosa started the inning with a single to right, and then Sox nemesis Frankie Cat reached on a throwing error by Alex Cora, starting in place of Who?-lio Lugo again.

Another Saturday stud, Marlon Byrd, then muscled a Tavarez offering into right that crossed up J.D. Drew and young CF Jacoby Ellsbury, and as Drew glanced to avoid Ellsbury the ball glanced off his glove, and Sosa raced home with a gift-wrapped run.

Tavarez limited the damage when he induced a DP later, but with the way the Sox have been playing, one run feels like friggin 10!

Boston would overcome the huge deficit when they strung together singles by Cora, Pedroia and then RBI machine Youk drove in the tying run in the fifth, but much to the crowd's dismay, Loe would retire Papi on a long flyball to the Monster and Manny on a groundout, and two men were left standing on base, wondering what it would be like to touch home plate.

Unfortunately the warm & fuzzy feeling of scoring a run and tying the game would not last long, because in the top of the sixth Texas would take the lead for good when the Cat (dam him!) led off with a walk and Brad Wilkerson doubled him in with a shot high of the monster.

The fact that he was allowed to take third on a couple of piss-poor relay throws didn't really a matter much at that point, nor did the fact that Julie would exit the game after two more batters.

Because at 2-1 the damage was done, and all that was left was for Boston to strand almost a half a dozen more runners, including two in the seventh when Papi whiffed against Frankie Francisco, two in the eigth when Cora grounded out against Eric Gagne, and one more in the ninth as Gagne got Ortiz to meekly pop out to the infield with pinch runner Lugo standing on first base to end it.

And so it will now be up to the youngster Kason Gabbard to stop the bleeding tomorrow night, but who's kidding who? Even if he throws a 1-hit shutout, the way things are going for this team, they'll still find a way to lose.

I'll say it again--thank Christ for that 10-game bulge!

NOTES

• Boston had nine hits, six (2 each) from Tek, Youk and Pedroia
• Varitek hurt his ankle when Akinori Otsuka stepped on his ankle on a play at first in the 8th. Otsuka would leave the game, and Gagne was summoned before the 9th inning for the first time in three years
• Paging Eric Gagne: when Gagne was called to replace Otsuka, he did not want to come to the mound to warm up, per rules when a pitcher leaves due to injury. Despite jeers from the fans and the pleading of his bullpen coach and umpires, it took the Seth Rogen lookalike a good four minutes to enter the field
• Lugo got his third night off in a row, one day after his boneheaded baserunning blunder cost Boston a potential tying run
• Cora went 1-4 in his absence and made a spectacular play behind second in the second inning, but then made two or three horrible plays later. Must be the position
• Drew extended his hitting streak to nine games with a single in the 8th and in that time he's batting .444 (12-27) to raise his average from .236 to .260
• Captain Clutch? Papi latest homerless streak has reached nine games and he's hit just two longballs in his last 20 games. Plus, according to the Globe, he's a less-than-spectacular 7-28 in late innings of close games, with no homers and just one ribbie. Yikes
• Youk played third while Lowell had the night off and had a pair of hits; his RBI was his ninth in the last eight games. Hinske took first base
• Kenny Lofton continues his audition for a mid-season trade to a contender as the 40-year-old speedster had another pair of hist and he is now 8-13 in the series, though he hasn't scored a run-hmmm.

QUOTES

"If our starting pitching continues to perform like it has, there's light at the end of the tunnel." -- Rangers manager Ron Washington; if they keep playing Boston, there is!

"You go through times when it seems like you're whacking it all over the ballpark. We'll straighten it up and we'll put a bunch up."--The Power of Positive Thinking by Tito Francona

RECORD: 49-31
AL EAST: Up 10.5 on TOR
STREAK: L-2
LAST 10: 4-6
UP NEXT: Mon vs. TEX 7:05