"Best" bully blows another as Gagne continues to gag

Baltimore 6, Sox 3
WP: Bradford (1-4)
LP: Snyder (2-3)
HRs: BAL-Millar (11), Tejada (11)

SUMMARY
Boston ended its 10 day road trip on a major down note when Eric Gagne gave up a 2-run homer to Miguel Tejada to tie the game in the 8th, then Kevin Millar hit a 3-run jack off Kyle Snyder in the bottom of the 10th to win it for Baltimore.

And the Sox lead in the East now sits at a slim 4 games...

#1 STUNNER Millar 3-5, 2R, 3RBI
The original idiot did a number on his former mates, notching two of the five hits Curt Schilling allowed and then pummelling a Snyder fastball for the game-winning homer.

PAN's FAUN Gagne 2/3IP, 1H, 1ER, 1K, 1HR
The supposed bullpen savoir has been a bullpen sinker as the former Ranger closer has been absolutely horrid in his brief stint with the Sox; he's now allowed 10 hits and 7 earned runs in 4 innings with Boston for a 15.75 ERA.

Worse than his performance, however, is the fact that his stunning awfulness is rubbing off on the rest of the bullpen.

RECAP
Raise your hand if you're starting to get that sickening, 2006 feeling again, Red Sox fans.

If you're hand's not raised right now you're either lyin' or denyin', cause all of a sudden a season that had World Series written all over it is looking more and more like last year, when the Sox broke out to a promising start only to collapse like Lindsay Lohan after one too many 8-balls.

Boston's AL East lead was sliced to a minuscule 4 games thanks to the Stanks' sweep of the Tribe this weekend, all that separates them from a Boston Massacre redux is the fact that they might already be out of first place by the time the two rivals hook up again in two weeks in the Bronx.

Which begs the question, would it be better to give up the division lead this week and go into that series trailing the Stanks, or do we really want to undergo the soul-crushing humiliation of letting our arch enemies ruin our season once again?

Discuss.

I know, I know, I can hear all you eternal optimists out there saying "hey, we've still got a four game lead, we're playing the D-Rays next, and the Stanks embark on a tough road trip themselves this week, so don't give up hope yet."

What I say to that is most of you glass-half-full people are under the age of 30 and are judging the chances of the Sox success on the mere fact that they came back to stun the Stanks in the 2004 playoffs, not the numerous heartbreaking collapses the team has undergone over the last, oh, seven decades before that.

To break it down scientifically, the score stands History 1,487, Sox 1.

Look I'm definitely not ready to throw in the towel and I realize that this band of talented veterans and confident youngsters isn't about to pack it in either, but when things start happening to a team like what happened on this trip, it's hard to ignore the familiar, ominous signs of a season on the brink.

Blown saves, terrible baserunning, awful errors, mental gaffes and lack of timely hits were all staples of the sliding Sox on this roadie, and all of those factors came into play in the finale today.
The worst part about it is that for the third straight game Boston got a great effort from its starter, yet they lost 2 of the 3 contests.

Curt Schilling, in his second start since coming off the DL, held the Baltimore lineup in check, surrendering just 5 hits and 1 unearned run over 6 innings while hitting 90+ regularly on the gun, although for the first time in his storied career he didn't allow a walk or a strikeout.

The only blemish on his linescore came when Millar hit a 1-out single in the 2nd, then went to third on a Buckner-esque error by Julio Lugo and came home on a groundout by Melvin Mora for the game's first run.

The error, which should have been an inning-ending double play, was Lugo's 14th of the season and 3rd on this trip, although he made numerous other mental miscues in the field.

The Sox bounced right back with two runs in the 3rd, but much like seemingly every other game this season the team had a zillion chances to blow the game wide open early but couldn't capitalize.

After getting one runner on in the 1st and two on in the 2nd against struggling Baltimore starter Steve Trachsel (6.1IP, 10H, 3ER, 3BB, 1K) Boston finally broke through in the third, but once again the damage could have been worse.

Kevin Youkilis (1-3, R, 2BB) began the rally when he drew a one-out walk, then went to third on a double off the right field wall by Big Papi, who came within a few feet of a home run if not for his ailing shoulders.

Manny followed with a liner to the right center field gap that scored both runners to give Boston a 2-1 Boston lead, and it looked a big inning was at hand.

Then another untimely edition of Manny Being Manny reared its ugly head, and that was all she wrote.

With J.D. Drew at the plate Baltimore catcher Paul Bako mishandled a Trachsel pitch that squirted a few feet away from him. For some reason only beknownst to Manny, the loopy right fielder broke for third and was thrown out by a country mile, a play that stung that much more when Drew promptly laced a single to right that would have scored Ramirez anyway.

Boston added to its lead when Tek and Lugo doubled in the 4th, but from then on it was same shit, different inning for the Boston offense.

6th inning: Lowell & Tek singled, Hinske grounded into a double play
7th inning: Youk singled, Ortiz walked, Manny grounded into a double play

By the time the 8th inning rolled around both starters were on the bench and it was up to Boston's bullpen to nurse that slender 3-1 lead instead of the 6 or 7 run bulge it should have been had the team been able to get one friggin big hit in any of those innings.

I think you know what happened from there.

Okajima, who seems to have acquired some of Gagne's bad mojo by sitting near him in the pen, walked Corey Patterson to open the 8th, and after Markakis moved him to second with a grounder, Tito did something that made every Sox heart skip a beat:

he summoned Gagne from the pen.

Seven pitches later Tejada launched a blast into the left field seats, and just like that Schill's yeoman effort, much like Dice-K's on Friday night, was gone in the blink of an eye, much to the chagrin of the thousands of Nation members who had invaded Camden for the series.

To make a long and depressing story a little shorter, Boston wasted baserunners in the 9th & 10th, and after Kyle Snyder got the call for the 10th and allowed a leadoff single to Patterson, we all knew the game was about to end, it was just a matter of how.

Markakais singled Patterson over to third and one out later Millar sent a Snyder fastball into the seats for the game winner, and at just that moment if you listened real closely you could hear the sound of millions of tv sets clicking over to the PGA Championship as well as loud exclamations of "FUCK!" coming from every RSN househould across the land.

And so the Sox will limp back to Fenway after a humiliating 4-5 road trip in which its East lead was cut in half and its aura of invincibility was shattered like an egg.

Hey, at least we got the D-Rays next, right?

Maybe they can take two of three from them.

As long as Gagne stays nailed to the fucking bench.