Online Edition Monday, August 16, 2004
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ON BASEBALL John Tomase BOSTON - Some losses define a season. Others merely summarize one. Take yesterday afternoon at Fenway Park. Hurricane Charley stayed away long enough for the Red Sox to lose 5-4 to the White Sox by falling short in just about every area that's plagued them this year. To wit: * They wasted another strong start from Bronson Arroyo. * Alan Embree and Mike Timlin provided brutal middle relief. * Terrible baserunning cost them one, if not two runs. * Arroyo let Carlos Lee - who weighs about 245 pounds - steal third, then Bill Mueller didn't look him back to the bag on a tainted RBI groundout. * The Sox failed to capitalize on Mark Buehrle's early wildness. * They lost yet another one-run game. Unique, this defeat wasn't. "It was a good game, but that's just the way things are going right now," said David Ortiz. "What can you do?" Let's start at the beginning. Blessed with impeccable control but pitching on three days rest, Buehrle walked the bases loaded in the first with two outs. Fortunately for him, Orlando Cabrera stepped to the plate and promptly grounded to short. We'll come back to Cabrera, because he wasn't done failing to deliver a two-out hit. But the bungled first allowed Buehrle to find his rhythm and he shut out the Red Sox into the sixth. "If you're with this kid every day, you love him even more," saluted White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "Buehrle's a pitcher. He's going to give you everything he has every single day." Arroyo basically matched him pitch for pitch. Boston's fifth starter allowed two runs in the fourth, though one fell squarely on his shoulders. After Lee doubled in Timo Perez to give Chicago a 1-0 lead, Arroyo paid no attention to the big man. Lee responded by stealing third pretty easily, despite a strong, accurate throw from catcher Jason Varitek. "I hadn't seen him in a few years and he's a bigger guy," Arroyo said. "I didn't think he'd take third in that situation. And sure enough, as soon as I started going to the plate I heard, 'There he goes.'" Paul Konerko followed with a grounder to third. Mueller, who had just entered for the injured Kevin Youkilis, glanced at Lee, but not long enough to send him back to the bag. As he threw across the diamond, Lee broke for home, easily beating Doug Mientkiewicz's wild throw to the plate. Lee's baserunning stood out when juxtaposed against that of the Red Sox. Though third base coach Dale Sveum will undoubtedly catch more flak for sending Youkilis in the third ("Now he's getting our players killed,"), Youkilis didn't help his cause by making an inefficient turn around the bag. Center fielder Aaron Rowand cut down Youkilis, who appeared to slide underneath Sandy Alomar's tag by a hair, but with better baserunning, the play would not have been close. Youkilis and Alomar each eventually left with injuries. "Our lack of team speed cost us today," said Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon. "Youkilis and Ortiz just aren't that fast." The latter did his part later. He failed to score from second with two outs in the eighth on Kevin Millar's line single to left. Pinch hitter Dave Roberts struck out to end the inning. The Sox trailed by three runs at that point because Embree and Timlin, ostensibly their most trustworthy middle relievers, again failed to do the job. In the span of three batters in the eighth, they went single, sacrifice, two-run homer. The latter, served up to Lee by Timlin, turned a 3-2 game into a 5-2 game. "I've been doing this for 14 years," Timlin snarled before getting sarcastic. "I think I'm going to get sent down to Triple A." The Sox of the red variety still had a chance in the ninth. They touched White Sox closer Shingo Takatsu for a pair of runs and had runners on the corners with two outs when Cabrera batted once again. Already 3 for 4, Cabrera checked his swing at Takatsu's second pitch. He rolled it back to the mound. Game over. Even after going 3 for 5, Cabrera's only hitting .204 since replacing Nomar Garciaparra. "He needs to relax," Damon said. "There's a whole lot of pressure on him from everyone - the fans, the media. Taking over for a franchise player is tough." Plenty of Boston's problems existed before Cabrera's arrival. They fell to a league-worst 8-17 in one-run games. And they once again wasted a sterling outing from Arroyo, who allowed three runs in seven innings, but fell to 5-9. Eight times this year he's allowed two runs or fewer with only a loss or no-decision to show for it. "It's tough going out there and feeling like you threw the ball pretty good, but you know, little things come back to haunt you sometimes," Arroyo said. Those little things have haunted the Red Sox all season. It should comes as no surprise that they're still hindering their wild card chances today. John Tomase is an Eagle-Tribune writer. E-mail him at jtomase@eagletribune.com.
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