Sox, Lester Lose A Game Without Offense, 2-1

No offense. A bad bounce. Great pitching.

That was the story to this game.

Behind a strong performance from Lester, the Red Sox offense went missing and is currently on the side of milk cartons as they lost the series opener to the Rockies, 2-1.

The Rockies put across their second run in the 8th. With men on first and second (thanks to a pop fly into shallow left field that fell between Daniel Nava, Mike Cameron and Marco Scutaro), Ryan Spilborghs smoked a ball toward Scutaro at short. The ball took a flat-out FREAKISH bounce over Scutaro's head, allowing Helton to score and give the Rox a 2-0 lead.

Not something you want down 1-0.

Fortunately, the Sox did not get shutout. Thanks to an Adrian Beltre double to kickoff the 9th and a Mike Cameron single through the hole on the leftside, Boston was able to get one across. But they should have put a few more than that.

Meanwhile, Lester was solid as the offense went missing. Lester gave up six hits, one run, one walk and struck out six in six innings of work. He threw just 90 pitches. He may have been able to go out for the 8th inning, but he was pinch-hit for with David Ortiz in the 7th which...

... turned out to be fruitless. Ortiz came in with the bases loaded and two outs. Obviously, this is a smart move, but it just didn't work out. Ortiz hit a soft grounder to second to leave all three runners stranded and the Sox still down, 1-0.

The Sox also had a bases-loaded opportunity in the third, but that was wasted when Victor Martinez grounded out to end the inning.

You might as well call Rockies' starter Jhoulys Chacin by his better-known name: Ubaldo Chacin. OK, so maybe he wasn't that good, but for a good chunk of this game he made the Sox look silly. Chacin allowed four hits, no runs, walked five and struck out five in 6.2 innings of work.

The Rockies scored their first run in the bottom of the fifth when Todd Helton signed to right to score Chris Nelson.

And want to know the best part? We get Ubaldo tomorrow. This is a game the Sox needed to win because odds are they're not going to come out alive tomorrow night. But hey, you never know, right? Maybe the offense was just resting tonight so they could give it their all tomorrow night.

Here's to wishful thinking. And a blister or two on Ubaldo's right hand.