Sox Move to 0-4 to Start 2011

                                                       Sports Illustrated

Well, this has not been the start I, or any other Red Sox fans envisioned when they dreamed of World Championships this winter. The Red Sox dropped their fourth in a row to start the year, this time with a 3-1 loss at the hands of the Cleveland Indians Tuesday night. The reason tonight, however, was different from other nights. Tonight, the offense couldn't get a thing going.

The Red Sox offense was completely shut down in front of an empty Jacobs Field by starter Josh Tomlin. The Red Sox got off to a decent start off Tomlin, getting a double followed by an RBI single by Saltalamacchia, his first hit of the season. After this inning, though, the Red Sox managed just one more hit in the five subsequent innings pitched by Tomlin. He had hitters looking confused all day, and not allowing many hard hit balls. 

The Red Sox called upon Josh Beckett to try and stop their losing streak, and he did not pitch horribly. Beckett cruised through the first two innings, giving up just one baserunner. However, Beckett started a downward trend in the third. He had two men in scoring position in the inning, after throwing over 30 pitches to get to that point, with two outs and he struck out Choo to get out of the jam. In the fourth, he was not so lucky. The Indians took control of the game in this inning, scoring two runs and generally hitting the ball hard off of Beckett. He gave up another run in the 5th and left after the inning, surrendering 3 runs on 5 hits in 5 innings of work.

After this, both bullpens were able to shut the opposing lineup down, although some innings were more stressful than others. In the 9th, the Red Sox trailed by 2 runs, but had their best hitters coming to the dish. Well, Crawford fouled out to lead off the inning. Pedroia followed that with a single into left, which was followed by fly out to left by Gonzalez. After a Youkilis walk, Ortiz had men on first and third with a chance to take the lead with one swing of the bat. He hit a hard liner right at Austin Kearns to end the game.

One positive thing to take out of this game is that this wasn't a horrible start of the year for Beckett. This game is on the offense. The Red Sox try again for win #1 tomorrow night and send Dice-K to the mound. Get ready for a four hour affair.