Make it 2-8 on this most recent run of baseball futility from the Boston Red Sox.

You don't have to look far for the problem tonight: Josh Beckett gave up three in the second, and four in the third in what would be a complete shocker of a performance were it not for the fact that, at this point, most of us are just waiting to see what aspect of the team will go wrong on any given day.

The offense had its chances to come back in spite of that, but two bases loaded chances went wanting with Ryan Sweeney and Dustin Pedroia failing to get the ball out of the infield in the fourth and eighth respectively. Pedroia, to his credit, went opposite field earlier in the game for Boston's third run.

I don't know what to say at this point. The Red Sox lose. It's what they do these days. If you separate the team into the rotation, bullpen, lineup, and defense, then on any given day one will be terrible enough to outweigh any contributions of the other three. It's frankly unreal how little success we've seen for how good the bullpen has been when that was the huge concern in the first week or so.

12-19