They made it close late, but the Red Sox dropped their second game of the day to the Rays 6-5.
The Sox dug a hole for themselves early, thanks to a shaky first inning from Clay Buchholz, who yielded a walk and a hit before getting Carlos Pena to hit one at Mike Cameron. What should have been a scoreless first fell apart, though, as Cameron tried to catch the ball before it was in his glove. Buchholz couldn't recover quickly, and the inning-that-shouldn't-have-been yielded 3 more runs for the Rays before it was over.
After that unfortunate opening, Buchholz actually put together an impressive outing, allowing only 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 6 Rays over the next four innings. Unfortunately, with his pitch count inflated by the first inning, Buchholz was pulled for Scott Atchison, who coughed 2 up runs in 2 innings--one unearned after a Marco Scutaro error.
The offense tried to climb its way back into the game in the middle innings, as Marco Scutaro, Dustin Pedroia, and Kevin Youkilis all hit home runs to bring the Red Sox within 1 run.
The Red Sox fall to 4-7 with the loss, making this the latest they have been 3 games under .500 in a season since 1997, when they finished the year 78-84.