An inconsistent campaign for a quintet once relied upon to carry the club continued Friday night in stunning fashion. Star left-hander Jon Lester, who had thrown 14 1/3 scoreless innings in his previous two outings against a pair of first-place teams, was shelled to the tune of a career-high nine runs in just two innings, his shortest start as a major leaguer.
Hours after Lester left the mound, the Toronto Blue Jays completed a 16-2 rout, sending Boston to its worst home loss of the season. But the shock of seeing the big southpaw chased before he could even get an out in the third inning was still with all of those who witnessed it.
The fact that the clunker came hours after the team placed Dustin Pedroia on the disabled list and several days after it had made any gains in the playoff race made it hurt that much more.
"It's tough. We're getting down to nut-crunching time here and that right there doesn't really help us," Lester said. "It's going to be a long five days to get back up there and hopefully do a little better."
Such sentiment has been expressed a handful of times of late as the starters struggle to find some semblance of consistency.
There was a turn or two in the rotation after Josh Beckett and Clay Buchholz returned from the disabled list at the end of July when everything clicked. Opponents were held to six runs or less, often much less, in 17-straight games, going 7-10 against Boston. Talk surrounding the Red Sox centered on the fact that if they could weather the storm of injuries they would be a tough out in the playoffs simply because of their pitching.
The prospect of facing Lester, Buchholz, and then the pick of the remaining trio of Beckett, John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka, was a daunting one, especially when all were healthy and on their games.
Since then it's been one step forward, one step back for the rotation, Buchholz being the one exception.
Thursday night's starter, Beckett, had three solid starts after coming off the DL and then three he'd love to have back. Lackey gave up four earned runs in 22 1/3 innings over three starts but has surrendered 19 runs in 26 1/3 frames since.
Matsuzaka has given up exactly one run in three of his last six starts and exactly four runs in the other three. He has failed to last as long as seven innings in nine of 10 appearances since he came off the DL in June.
Then there's Lester, whose latest outing left a packed house on a Friday night at Fenway in stunned silence. Lester, who went 0-4 with an un-Lester-like 4.39 ERA in his first four starts after the All-Star break, had looked so good against New York and Texas last week. He held the Yankees scoreless in 6 1/3 innings in a 2-1 nail-biter and did not walk a batter for just the second time all season in blanking the high-powered Rangers for eight dominant innings.
The slump was a thing of the past. Now coming off the worst start of his career, Lester has to hope he is not entering a new one.
"Hopefully this is just a fluke, one of those deals that happen once in a blue moon and you move on and things will be better in five days," he said.
Lester said he did not have "anything from pitch one," which was the first of four balls he threw to leadoff hitter Fred Lewis. Following a bunt single and an out, Lester threw a pickoff attempt into center field, allowing both runners to move up. John Buck's two-run single into right field started the scoring.
The Blue Jays got three more runs in the first on Lyle Overbay's home run, one more in the second and three more in the third when Overbay again launched one over the Green Monster with two runners on. With the score 9-0 and the sun still on the horizon, Lester was yanked in favor of Scott Atchison.
"He just didn't command really anything," manager Terry Francona added. "It was a tough go right from the beginning."
As a team, Boston has allowed five runs or more nine times in its last 13 games. In the other four, it has limited opponents to one or zero runs. There has been no in-between. And with the ups and downs, and a harrowing start for one the best in the game, the riddle remains.
