Red Sox Piss Another Season Down The Drain, Misery Continues In Baltimore

Aaron Cook had a no-hitter entering the sixth inning and the Red Sox led the Orioles 2-0. As quick as you could say, no October baseball at Fenway, Baltimore scored five runs en route to a 5-3 win tonight at Camden Yards.

Boston (57-61, 28-27 away) latest slide all but guarantees that September will be completely meaningless. There is no chance this team will push for a playoff spot, at this point they are going to struggle to finish over .500 and in front of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Baltimore (64-53, 32-28 home) only had six hits but they made them count by going 4 for 13 with runners in scoring position. The Red Sox were 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position while they both left six men on base.

The uniquely terrible aspects to this loss for Boston included a throwing error by Cook that led to three runs plus the ejections of Adrian Gonzalez and Bobby Valentine. After Pedro Strop quick pitched Gonzo in the eighth then got him to ground out, the normally church mouse quiet first baseman sort of showed some emotion. Valentine came out to defend him/fire up his worthless team but you can see from the final score how that went.

Cook (3-6) went 5.1 innings, allowing five runs (two earned) on three hits with one strikeout and three walks.

Orioles starter Miguel Gonzalez (5-2) went six innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits with two strikeouts and a walk. Baltimore's bullpen locked it down, especially Strop who had a 1-2-3 eighth with two strikeouts for his 20th hold and closer Jim Johnson who notched his 35th save with a clean ninth including a strikeout.

Jacoby Ellsbury's (2 hits) RBI double and Carl Crawford's sacrifice fly scored Nick Punto (2 runs) staked the Red Sox to a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning.

The Orioles sixth included an RBI single by Nate McLouth, Adam Jones grounded into a fielder's choice and Cook threw the ball away which allowed J.J. Hardy to score, Matt Wieters had an RBI double and Mark Reyonlds ended it with a two-run double.

All Boston could muster after Baltimore's big sixth inning was an RBI ground out by Crawford in the seventh.

Clay Buchholz (10-3) is all that stands in the way of a three-game sweep by the Orioles tomorrow night (7:05 p.m., NESN) as he takes on Chris Tillman (5-2). The only question is how will the Red Sox find a new and different way to lose?

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Remember The Good Old Days: When The Red Sox Could Beat The Orioles?

It's a very sad state of affairs when the Baltimore Orioles look like a dominant team against you.

After tonight's 2-1 win at Fenway Park, the Orioles (32-24, 18-11 away) improved to 5-0 in Boston this season and 6-2 so far in 2012 vs. the Red Sox (28-28, 13-16). Baltimore has won the first two games of the series and will go for the sweep tomorrow night. Dating back to last season, the O's have beaten the Red Sox 12 of its last 15 games, they're also 7-0 in their last seven games at Fenway (a franchise record). Haha good lord, this is getting absurd.

With the result, Baltimore gained sole possession of first-place again in the American League East while Boston remains in the basement after falling back to the .500 mark with three consecutive losses.

Of course to top it all off, the Red Sox wasted what will probably end up as Josh Beckett's (4-6) best outing of the season. He went eight innings (5th straight start of 7+ innings), allowing two earned runs on five hits with five strikeouts and no walks.

Wei-Yin Chen (5-2) lasted one less inning than Beckett but that doesn't matter since the Orioles have one of the top setup man/closer combinations in baseball: Pedro Strop and Jim Johnson. Seriously. Chen allowed one earned run on seven hits with four strikeouts and no walks.

Strop worked around two walks in the eighth to record his 11th hold while Johnson had a 1-2-3 ninth including two strikeouts for his 18th save of the season (after blowing the save last night but recovering for the win in the 10th inning).

It was a strange but fast game (2:31) that featured a combined 12 hits but only one of the extra-base variety (an RBI double by Darnell McDonald).

Boston scored its lone run in the third inning when Mike Aviles drove in McDonald with a sacrifice fly. The Red Sox left eight on base and they were just 1 for 5 with runners in scoring position.

Baltimore's two runs both came in the sixth on Robert Andino's RBI single and a ground out by Endy Chavez that plated Portland, Maine native Ryan Flaherty with what turned out to be the winning run.

Clay Buchholz (5-2) is probably the last Red Sox starting pitcher you'd pick to help avoid a sweep but that will be his difficult task tomorrow night (7:10 p.m., NESN) while we sit around and wait for Celtics-Heat Game 6 to start. Brian Matusz (5-5) will get the ball for the Orioles.

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The Red Sox Might Never Go Over .500 This Entire Season

Remember the good old days when the Baltimore Orioles were a complete joke? The Boston Red Sox could always count on two things: 1) Camden Yards was Fenway South and 2) they beat up on the O's every year like it was going out of style.

I keep waiting for Baltimore (28-16, 13-10 home) to come back to Earth in 2012 but they continue to play very well as they beat Boston (21-22, 12-11 away) 4-1 tonight at Camden Yards. The crowd might not be showing up yet (don't ask me why) but the Orioles are looking like a legit contender in the AL East this season.

With the win, Baltimore improved to 4-1 against Boston this season while also kicking the Red Sox back under .500 (this is the latest it's taken them to get over that mark since 1996). They have already had two chances to reach that mediocre level but Boston cannot even do that right so far in this forgettable campaign. To make matters worse, the Yankees won tonight so the Red Sox are back in sole possession of fifth-place in the AL East.

After a nightmare 2011, young Orioles lefty Brian Matusz (4-4) appears to have found his game once again. He went 6.2 innings, allowing one earned run on two hits with a career high nine strikeouts and one walk. He turned it over to the lights out Baltimore bullpen which completed the task in style.

Darren O'Day struck out the two batters he faced in the seventh, Pedro Strop struck out one in a scoreless eighth for the hold and Jim Johnson got a 1-2-3 ninth for his MLB-leading 16th save of the season (on 8 pitches!).

Felix Doubront (4-2) pitched very well but it wasn't enough since he received barely any run support. In six innings, he allowed two earned runs on four hits with a career high nine strikeouts and two walks. His only mistake was a two-run homer to Scott Tolleson (1st of the season) in the second inning.

Boston managed only two hits, one was a solo homer by Kevin Youkilis (remember him?) in the fourth inning, his third of the season. Wilson Betemit put it away with a two-run shot off former Oriole Matt Albers in the eighth.

The Red Sox will try to win the series tomorrow afternoon (12:35 p.m., NESN) as Daniel Bard (3-5) faces Jake Arrieta (2-4). It's the culmination of a 20 games in 20 days stretch and an eight-game road trip. Before Boston hops on the plane, it would help them greatly if they show up for tomorrow's game. I'm sure they're dead tired and sick of being on the road but another win in Baltimore would be fantastic.

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