BOSTON - The only way this split with the Mariners would have felt good for the Red Sox is if it had a banana in it.
With time running out on their bid to make the playoffs, the Sox have to do better than winning two of every three, and that's not easy, as the homestand that concluded yesterday showed.
Boston was 6-3 on it, but remains 5-1/2 games nfl jerseys
behind the Rays and Yankees.
Yesterday, the Sox won the afternoon game, 5-3, behind Josh Beckett and lost the second game to Felix Hernandez, 4-2, with Tim Wakefield making an emergency start.
Wakefield had to pitch when Daisuke Matsuzaka came down with a sore back, forcing the Sox to push Jon Lester - the scheduled starter last night - to tomorrow night, when Matsuzaka was supposed to pitch.
"We had to kind of get (things settled) in a hurry," Terry Francona said. "Wakefield did a great job under the circumstances. It's a lot to ask, facing one of the better pitchers in the league, and he gave us a chance to win."
Wakefield, now 3-10, went 5-2/3 innings and took the loss.
Hernandez is right behind Boston's Clay Buchholz in the American League ERA rankings at 2.47, but last night's win merely evened his record at 10-10. He is 4-1 lifetime vs. Boston, and 3-0 against the Sox in four career starts at Fenway Park.
Hernandez worked into the eighth, with Brandon League coming on and getting the save. The two Seattle pitchers combined to give up only five hits against a Sox batting order that, after Adrian Beltre was ejected, included Yamaico Navarro, Daniel Nava, Ryan Kalish and Kevin Cash.
Boston got a run in the bottom of the third on a wild pitch and another in the sixth on Colts jersey
J.D. Drew's home run. The Sox had a great chance to tie it in the eighth when they had men at first and second with one out, and second and third with two out, but David Ortiz lined to left, ending the threat.
In the day game, Beckett snapped his three-game losing streak, but once again fell apart for no apparent reason. Beckett was unhittable for six innings, then a batting practice pitcher in the seventh when he gave up a pair of home runs. That led Terry Francona to be as close to critical as he comes.
"The first six were tremendous," Francona said. "Then there's a solo homer - OK. Then he gets behind (Casey Kotchman) and all of a sudden it's 4-3. It's similar to what's happened before. It happens pretty quickly."
The Sox snapped a 0-0 tie with four runs in the sixth. The way Beckett was pitching, it looked like Francona could give his varsity bullpen - Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon - the afternoon off. That changed in a flash, though.
"The biggest inning," Francona said, "is when, after you score, you want to put up a zero on the board. We've got to do better with that. ... He's got some hurdles to overcome."
Beckett was obviously peeved when he went to the dugout, and that emotion was directed at himself.
"There was nobody else to be mad at," he said.
Asked what would stay in his mind about this start, the six great innings or the one Cowboys jersey
awful one, Beckett replied, "I don't know. It's a good question."
Offensively, Boston had seven hits. Marco Scutaro was 2 for 4 and Daniel Nava had a two-run single in the sixth.
A 6-3 record on a homestand is pretty good, but the Sox really needed to go 7-2. For all of their hard work in playing .667 baseball, they are exactly where they were when the homestand began.
Which might give them something like a splitting headache.
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