What Has Become Of Daniel Bard?

Sometimes baseball and in turn life doesn't make any sense.

On a day when John Lackey actually pitched decently-one of his best outings of the season mind you-ace setup man Daniel Bard failed to protect a lead once again as the Boston Red Sox lost 5-4 to the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park in an afternoon matinee.

They dodged a bullet as the Tampa Bay Rays lost 6-2 to the Baltimore Orioles tonight at Camden Yards, meaning that Boston remains four games ahead of Tampa Bay in the AL Wild Card race.

Bard (2-8; most losses of any reliever in MLB) has had a disastrous week with three terrible appearances in a row. That is nothing but bad news for the Red Sox (86-62) who count perhaps way too much on him. With an already taxed bullpen (since the rotation is a mess), Terry Francona has little choice but to hope Bard somehow finds his control again and works out of his funk.

Summoned to protect a 4-2 lead in the top of the eighth, Bard allowed three runs (two earned) on a hit with two walks. It was his fifth blown save of the season. Jonathan Papelbon looked great in the ninth (in a non-save situation), going 1-2-3 with two strikeouts. It's time for him to do something that Francona avoids at all costs: go for saves that are longer than an inning.

The goodwill from Tim Wakefield's 200th win seemed to carry over to the series finale as Lackey pitched into the sixth and even left with a lead (3-2). He went 5.1 innings, allowing two earned runs on seven hits with a walk and four strikeouts. He is the punching bag of New England and I've already made countless negative jokes and comments about him this season but he didn't deserve that today.

Blue Jays (75-74) ace Ricky Romero (15-10) beat Boston for the second time in a week, a huge accomplishment for a guy that normally gets rocked Lackey-style (there it goes) when he takes the mound against them. Thanks to a low pitch count, he lasted eight innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on six hits with a walk and four strikeouts.

Toronto closer Frank Francisco also normally struggles against the Red Sox but he put his career numbers aside today with a 1-2-3 ninth with two strikeouts for his 15th save of the season.

The Blue Jays grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first on RBI singles by Edwin Encarnacion (2 hits) and Kelly Johnson.

Boston tied it in the second with ground outs from Ryan Lavarnway and Jason Varitek.

Marco Scutaro's sacrifice fly in the third (scoring Jacoby Ellsbury who extended his hit streak to 18 games with a triple) and Adrian Gonzalez's solo shot in the sixth (his 26th of the season; first at Fenway since July 7) gave the Red Sox a 4-2 lead. That's when everything quickly fell apart (a common theme lately with Boston).

First, Gonzalez left in the seventh with tightness in his left calf. Two walks and an error on Bard to start the eighth gave Toronto the bases loaded with no outs. J.P. Arencibia's ground out scored Encarnacion to cut it to 4-3 and then Adam Loewen delivered the key hit of the game: a two-run single.

There are 14 games left in the season and Tampa Bay comes to town tomorrow night for the start of a four-game series. The pitching matchups are Kyle Weiland vs. Jeremy Hellickson on Thursday night, Josh Beckett vs. James Shields on Friday night, Jon Lester vs. Jeff Niemann on Saturday afternoon and Tim Wakefield vs. David Price on Sunday afternoon.

As a Red Sox fan, do you feel confident about any of those? Beckett is making his first start in over a week after spraining his ankle and the Rays knocked Lester around last weekend at the Trop. The only solace is that they'll still be ahead when Tampa Bay leaves, barring a sweep at home and they won't see them again this year.

The good news is that eight of the last 14 games are at home and even better, seven of them are against the O's. If the Red Sox can't hang on to a four-game lead with 14 remaining then they have nobody to blame but themselves and they wouldn't go anywhere in the playoffs anyway. The next two weeks should be a real test of this possibly great team's character.

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Beckett Sprains Ankle, Lawrie Hits Walkoff Homer in 11th

All I can say is thank God I was at the beach for all of today's game.

Well, to be specific, I listened to the first 10+ innings of the Red Sox-Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre on the radio and was walking back into our condo when Toronto (70-71) rookie Brett Lawrie (haha great picture by the way) hit a walk-off homer in the 11th against Dan Wheeler (2-2).

Why does that always seem to happen? You invest so much time into a baseball game and then it's over in one second when you're not paying attention.

The sting of a 1-0 loss in 11 innings for Boston (84-56) would have been much easier to take with the sun in the sky and the sand at my feet. Back home, the bleak reality set in. First, Red Sox starter Josh Beckett left in the fourth inning with a sprained ankle. He had been cruising, striking out six and only giving up three hits in 3.2 innings.

With Erik Bedard skipping a start due to his back and Beckett being sent back to Boston for a further examination, this is not the time for the Red Sox rotation to be falling apart.

Second, the Yankees beat the Orioles this afternoon meaning that New York is now 2.5 games ahead of Boston in the AL East.

As always, a rookie pitcher facing the Red Sox for the first time excelled. 21-year-old Henderson Alvarez went six innings for Toronto, scattering four hits with a walk and four strikeouts.

Charlie Villanueva (1 inning), Casey Janssen (1 inning), Frank Francisco (2 innings) all paved the way for Shawn Camp (3-3) who got a 1-2-3 top of the 11th.

Among other things, this loss wasted another outstanding effort by Alfredo Aceves. Summoned early, Boston's unsung hero went 3.2 innings, allowing only one hit with three walks and four strikeouts.

Daniel Bard got the last five outs in the eighth and ninth leading to Jonathan Papelbon who was sketchy (as always in a non-save situation) but was able to wiggle out of a bases-loaded jam in the 10th.

Josh Reddick and Marco Scutaro each had two hits in the loss.

Jon Lester and rookie Luis Perez will get the starts tomorrow night in the second of four in Toronto.

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What The Hell Should The Red Sox Do With John Lackey?

It has reached the point with the John Lackey experience that I honestly don't even know what the Boston Red Sox can do with him at this point.

He has the worst ERA (7.47) of any pitcher in baseball who has thrown over 70 innings. His ERA at Fenway this season is 9.17 with a 3-4 record. Lackey has lost his last three starts after yesterday's 9-7 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway on the fourth of July.

It was the shortest outing of Lackey's (5-8) career (2.1 innings) as he allowed seven earned runs on nine hits with two strikeouts.

The Red Sox (49-35) can either stick with him in the rotation, put him in the bullpen or place him on the DL. We've all seen what having him pitch every fifth day is like. I don't think remaking him as a reliever will work either since he's never done that. Finally, Boston loves cooking up fake injuries (there were reports last week that he needed Tommy John surgery) so I wouldn't put it past them to go with the latter option.

As much as I'd love to see them simply release him, they're stuck with him after giving him such a big contract in December 2009. Even John Henry can't absorb a $53.38 million dollar loss (yet), after all he's got a trophy wife to please.

The ironic and cruel part of yesterday's Lackey implosion was that the Red Sox almost rallied for a ridiculous comeback after trailing 7-0 in the third inning.

Jacoby Ellsbury (4 for 5, 2 RBIs, run, stolen base) led off the ninth with a single off Blue Jays (42-44) closer Frank Francisco and stole second base but Francisco proceeded to strike out Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez and Yamaico Navarro (who came in after Kevin Youkilis was hit in the back with a pitch in the fourth) to record his 10th save of the season.

Toronto starter Brandon Morrow (5-4) was his usual erratic self but when you're matched up against Lackey, anything better than the worst start of your career should get it done. He went five innings, allowing four earned runs on five hits with three walks and five strikeouts.

Rajai Davis (2 hits, run, RBI, stolen base) scored on Youk's error in the first for 1-0 Blue Jays lead. They tacked on two in the second on Aaron Hill's (3 hits, 2 runs, 2 RBIs) solo homer and an RBI single by John McDonald (2 hits, run, RBI).

Lackey's holiday was quickly over in the third as he gave up an RBI single to Adam Lind, an RBI single to Hill and a two-run double to Travis Snider (3 hits, 2 runs, 2 RBIs) that made it 7-0. I'm sure the crowd was filled with an extra amount of pink hats and goobers since it was the fourth but even they had the common sense to boo Lackey big time and cheer when Terry Francona emerged to take him out. Brutal.

The Red Sox started to comeback as they plated four runs in the fourth. Ellsbury started it with a two-run triple, Dustin Pedroia walked with the bases loaded and Adrian Gonzalez knocked in Pedroia with an RBI double off the Monster.

Dan Wheeler had by far his best outing in his brief Red Sox career as he got eight outs. He didn't allow a hit or walk anybody, it was good stuff after Lackey's latest turd salad.

Toronto got single runs in the seventh and eighth off Alfredo Aceves. Edwin Encarnacion scored in the seventh on Navarro's error and Davis drove in McDonald (Connecticut shoreline connection!) with an RBI double.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia provided another two-run triple, this time in the eighth and J.D. Drew knocked in Boston's final run with a sacrifice fly.

Two lefties duel tonight as Brett Cecil goes for the Blue Jays and Jon Lester takes the ball for the Red Sox.

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