Time to panic? Sox drop another game to Royals

Kansas City 6, Sox 5
WP: Perez (5-8)
LP: Tavarez (5-8)
SV: Dotel (10)
HRs: BOS-Manny (14)

RECAP
The sliding Sox suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of the cellar-dwelling Royals.

Julian Tavarez couldn't hold a two run lead and failed to make it out of the fifth inning again, the hitters failed to come through in numerous scoring situations, and for the second straight night Kansas City simply outplayed the Sox in every aspect of the game.

#1 STUNNER M. Grudzielanek 2-4, 2B, 2R, RBI
The gritty second sacker with the eye chart name had another terrific night at the plate and made the defensive play of the game, robbing Youk of a base hit with two men on in the seventh to preserve KC's one run lead.

PAN's FAUN Tavarez 4.2IP, 9H, 6R, 4ER, 0BB, 3K
Tito, please remove this ass clown from the starting rotation, stat!

RECAP
Anyone else getting a weird sense of deja vu here?

Last year the Sox rode a hot first half to a 53-33 record at the All Star break, then entered the second series following the break against Kansas City at Fenway on July 17th, 18th, & 19th carrying a 54-36 record and a boatload of confidence they would crush the wretched Royals.

This year the red-hot Sox took a 53-34 record into the break, then entered the second series following the break against Kansas City at Fenway on July 16th, 17th & 18th brandishing the league's best mark at 55-36 and looking forward to roasting the wretched Royals.

Anyone notice the differences?

Aside from the fact that the numbers are just one off, the biggest difference is last year the Sox went on to sweep Kansas City, taking three straight one-run decisions including the final two games of the series by identical scores of 1-0.

This year? After Boston shut out the Royals 4-0 in Game 1, Kansas City went on to embarrass the hometown nine by outhitting, outhustling, and outplaying the Sox for two straight games, and instead of another Sox sweep, KC came to town and shocked the nation by winning the series.

The other big difference between the two seasons is that last year Boston was nursing a slim 1/2 game lead over the Stanks heading into the KC series that bulged to 2 1/2 games after the Sox sweep.

This season the Sox owned a much more cushiony nine game advantage over New York coming in to this series, but that margin, which was up to 12 games just two weeks ago, has now been sliced to seven games, and if Boston keeps up this pace there's going to be another duplication of last year: the Sox freefall from first place to out of the race.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this, but I'm just so pissed off after watching that poor excuse for a game that I can't even think straight.

My only crystal clear thought coming out of the loss is that Julian Tavarez needs to be demoted back to the bullpen ASAP, and someone (i.e Jon Lester) needs to be brought up to take his place immediately.

For the third consecutive start Tavarez could not get out of the fifth inning, and he has allowed 28 hits and a total of 18 earned runs in 13.1 innings over that time, which calculates to an astronomical ERA of 12.15.

(Whistling loudly)

And as usual the Sox hitters fumbled away scoring chances like Tony Romo, leaving another eight men on base even though they put together a four-run fourth inning that briefly gave Boston the lead.

Like last night tonight's game remained scoreless through the first three innings (more deja vu?), and in another creepy coincidence the Royals put a pair of runs on the board in the fourth inning of both games as well.

Alright, enough of the freaky coincidence shit, I've played that one out.

Mark Grudzielanek got things started with a single to right, then Mark Teahen (1-4, 2R) followed with a single to left. After a groundout advanced the runners, former USF standout Ross Gload hit a sac fly to Drew that scored Grudz, and two pitches later improving rookie Alex Gordon dropped a single in front of Drew that scored Teahen and gave KC a 2-0 lead.

Unlike last night, however, Boston answered right back with a four spot in the fourth, and with a quality pitcher on the mound that might have been enough to beat these guys.

Manny (2-4, 2R, RBI) opened the frame with a bloop single to center, and a walk to Youk and single by Mike Lowell quickly loaded the bases with no outs against crappy KC starter Odalis Perez (5IP, 7H, 5ER, 2BB, 2K, HR.)

Varitek would get the first Sox run home when he tapped out to shortstop, and after Coco walked to reload the bases, hot-hitting Julio Lugo took the first pitch he saw from Perez and laced it down the third base line just under Gordon's glove for a huge double that scored both Youk and Tek and gave Boston a 3-2 lead.

Hooray--they finally got a big hit with men in scoring position!

Three pitches later J.D. Drew sent a sagging liner to left that Emil Brown made a nice shoestring catch of, but Coco (1-3, R) was alert enough to tag up and easily came home with Boston's fourth run.

The inning ended on a sour note when Pedroia (3-5) was called out on a controversial play at first base for the second night in a row, causing the Sox sparkplug to blow a gasket while the Nation celebrated Boston taking the lead.

But the party would be short lived.

In the very next inning Tavarez had one of his now patented meltdowns, and by the time the fifth was over Julie was muttering to himself in the clubhouse and fans were muttering to themselves "when is this shit going to end?!"

Ironically it was a five foot bunt single by David DeJesus would be the linchpin for the Red Sox unraveling. That's because Grudz immediately smacked a double off the scoreboard that bounced over Manny's glove, allowing DeJesus to race around from first to score, setting up a "wheels fall off" situation.

When Teahen spun a grounder to Lowell that doinked off his glove for his 14th error and set up a first & third, one-out situation, no one was really surprised (even Rem Dog said he could see that coming, and he was right, as usual.)

And when Billy Butler (who the fuck is this guy?) crushed a drive to deep left center that rolled to the wall and scored both runners to give KC the lead back, 5-4, not a fan in the Nation was at all shocked.

The shocking thing was that Tito allowed Tavarez to stay in the game, at least until he surrendered an RBI single to Gordon (2-4, 2BI)to batters later to close the scoring for the Royals, but unfortunately that move came about four batters too late.

Manny gave the Sox hope when he blasted a long & deep shot to straightaway centerfield for his 14th home run with one out in the fifth to cut the lead to 6-5, but Grudz killed Boston's last glimmer of hope when he took a hit--and potential tying run --away from the Sox in the seventh.

Pedroia reached with his third hit of the night with one out in the inning, then moved to second when Manny walked one out later. With Youk at the plate with a chance to tie the game, he hit a bouncing grounder that looked destined for rightfield.

But the spunky second baseman ranged far to his left, dove across the slippery turf, and stopped the ball from reaching the outfield. He then rose to his knees and fired a strike to first base to nail the hustling Youk by a nose, and it was at that point that we knew we had lost to these clowns again.

Even Jonathan Papelbon's first appearance in a week could spark the sad Sox, as the broken Boston boys succumbed to the immortal Octavio Dotel in the bottom of the ninth, failing to capitalize on an Ortiz single when Manny popped out to--ta da--Grudz to end the game.

Now comes the inevitable piling on by Stankee fans/ Sox haters, followed by the interminable feelings of when and if the Empire will overtake Boston for the division lead.

Last year that occurred on the 3rd of August.

Right on track for deja vu all over again.

NOTES

Too pissed.

QUOTES

Too tired

RECORD: 56-38
AL EAST: Up 7 gms on NYY
STREAK: L-2
LAST 10: 3-7
UP NEXT: Thu vs. CWS 705