Red Sox Lite

Diet Sox: 2 Big Bad Fifth in AL Central Tribe: 9

Youk, Jake, please heal fast! Your bats were missed at the plate and your gloves were missed even more in the field. The rest of the team apparently either forgot they were home at Fenway, or had too many Cinco De Mayo margaritas on the flight home from the Big Apple, or both. The Tribe took advantage of the hybrid Red Sox/Paw Sox lineup and exposed the subpar defense behind Masterson (who has recently caught a case of whatever was at one time ailing Beckett, Lester, and Penny). Bailey's now batting under .100 and missing the plays Youk makes look so easy. Van Every can hit, but his inexperience playing center at the Fens cost the Sox two runs. Even the regulars had some fielding gaffes that were costly, but couldn't really be called errors, such as a blown relay throw from Bay which missed Green and allowed Asdrubal Cabrera to reach third on what should have easily been a put-out.

Sloppy defense from his teammates and some lapses in command were Masterson's undoing in the second straight outing where he has allowed 6 earned runs. Again, the fifth inning is when the wheels came off. He pitched a clean sixth, but got into more trouble in the seventh and was lifted for Hunter Jones with Victor Martinez on first. Jones is promptly taken out of the park by Cleveland's resident Sox-killer Mark DeRosa. The game just kept getting uglier for the Boston boys. Jones finished the seventh and labored through the eighth, then Lopez hands out some more runs in the ninth. Pavano breezed through the reduced-strength Sox lineup, allowing only two runs and effectively curing his Fenway-phobia. Take the guy with the second best average in the AL out of the lineup and the guy who makes a pitcher nervous every time he reaches base and it makes the mighty struggle of Papi look that much mightier. Plus, having J-Bay up with nobody on base is no fun!

Tomorrow night, Wake tries to stymie the Tribe like he did a week ago Monday in Cleveland when he went toe-to-toe with Cliff Lee. Let's hope at least one of our walking wounded is feeling a whole lot better tomorrow, or Friday at the very latest. The defensive follies aren't going to go over too well when playing the Rays.

LET'S GO RED SOX!!!!