Riddled With...

Ineptitude, offensive impotence…take your pick for last night's "performance" I guess.

The Red Sox looked a little more than lacking in the runs department last night, they looked absolutely clueless. With the Yankees now moving in to within five games of Boston’s lead in the AL East, the next three weeks will show you what kind of team the Sox are. Will they find a way to win? Or will they fold and relinquish their lead they’ve held for about 140 odd games or so?

The injuries are starting to pile up and make their presence felt. Manny Ramirez was an obvious scratch for the game, David Ortiz was held out of the lineup because of the ongoing issues with his right knee, and even backup catcher Doug Mirabelli will not catch for Tim Wakefield in tonight’s contest because of a nagging left hamstring.

Curt Shilling had an otherwise great performance last night, only giving up one run on a sacrifice fly in the fifth inning to Josh Williams. It would have been a good night for the veteran, except for the fact that the Boston lineup decided not to score any runs. Scott Kazmir is a hell of a good pitcher, I’ll give him that, and with Manny and Papi out of the lineup it makes things more difficult. But come on, one damn run? Shut outs happen but it just hurts when it comes at the hands of the Devil Rays.

On the brighter side, the Sox did manage to keep pace with their lead by taking three of four from the Baltimore Orioles this past weekend as the Yankees swept the Kansas City Royals not 10 minutes from where I live. Thanks Royals. Boston had a chance to pick up another half game on the idle Yanks last night but failed to do so. The Yankees will open a three game set north of the border in Toronto against the Blue Jays before setting course for Boston on Friday.

Boston will try to regroup tonight as Wakefield goes for his 17^th win on the year. He will take on five game winner Andy Sonnanstine. The Sox will basically have to close out the D-Rays tonight and tomorrow if they hope to have more than a four or five game lead on the visiting Yankees come Friday.