It was a recipe for success, especially for a Boston team that could technically still classify itself as a contender for a playoff spot and would be going full bore against a squad playing out the string. And not long after Victor Martinez hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first inning to give the Sox a lead, the Green Monster scoreboard showed that the Yankees and Rays were losing.
Perchance to dream that a shrinking playoff deficit would be even smaller by the end of the night.
Unfortunately, John Lackey never had it. He never had command. He never had that dream. In fact, his 11th loss was a bit of a nightmare.
"You deserve to lose when you pitch like this," Lackey said after an 11-9 loss to the Blue Jays.
In a game his team desperately needed in order to keep its dim playoff hopes alive, Lackey gave up seven runs — six earned — on eight hits in 4 1/3 innings, his shortest start since Patriots' Day. He walked two and hit three batters, two of which came around to score.
The one hit batter that did not score, Fred Lewis, was plunked square between the numbers on an 0-1 fastball that missed its target by several feet. A 3-2 curveball that Lackey threw to Edwin Encarnacion in the fourth sailed to the backstop and was just as off-target.
"He misfired a couple of times real bad," manager Terry Francona said.
Lackey, who has appeared to turn a corner several times this year only to have a less-than-stellar line pop up, is now 2-6 with a 5.49 ERA over his last nine starts. He has given up 68 hits and 18 walks in 59 innings during that span.
The righty, who turns 32 next month, actually said he felt "OK" with his command, despite both Francona and Martinez insisting it was off. Lackey added that the Jays were able to find some holes among the eight hits he surrendered, but the final results are hard to defend and the night was never a smooth one.
Lackey gave up two hits on his first three pitches of the night. He wiggled out of the jam in the first but provided a preview of things to come in the second. Lyle Overbay doubled, Aaron Hill was hit by a pitch and Adam Lind doubled to drive them both in. Lewis was plunked later in that frame but was stranded.
The score would remain 2-2 before the fateful fifth, when Lackey's only out came on a sacrifice fly amid a five-run Blue Jays rally. He departed after another run-scoring double by Lind and heard a healthy dose of boos from another sellout at Fenway.
Martinez expressed a degree of surprise at the meltdown on the mound.
"Hitting three or four batters, that's not him," Martinez said. "Unfortunately, he didn't have it."
It was Lackey's fourth straight loss and, coupled with a win by the New York Yankees, it left Boston 6 1/2 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the race for a far-fetched wild-card spot.
Only 15 games remain. Lackey is scheduled to start three more times, including the regular-season finale against the Yankees at Fenway Park. After Friday's loss, it looks less likely that that game will mean anything to Boston other than having an opportunity to play spoiler to New York as it aims for an American League East crown. If Lackey fails to find the command that has eluded him on a handful of occasions this year, even that won't be an option.
