The Red Sox suffered their third disappointing loss in as many days as the Rangers piled on late-inning runs to put away a game that might have been in play.
The highlight of the day should have been Daisuke Matsuzaka's performance. Pitching into the seventh, Daisuke looked set to at least walk away with a very good start in the books. But seven innings of two-run ball were thrown out with two outs in the seventh, when Manny Delcarmen, asked to record just one out, allowed a three-run homer to Michael Young to give the Rangers a good deal of insurance.
It was insurance that they would turn out to need, as the Red Sox put together a few two-out hits, culminating in Darnell McDonald's two-run homer, to get right back into the game at 5-3 heading to the ninth.
Once again, though, the bullpen reared its ugly head, as Dustin Richardson hit Josh Hamilton to start off the bottom of the inning before Michael Bowden allowed three hits to push the score up to 7-3, where it would remain.
If things had happened in a slightly different order--if the Sox could have gotten on the board an inning earlier, we might not have seen Manny Delcarmen in to ruin another game, or the Pawtucket pair out in the ninth. But instead of Bard-Papelbon to finish a 3-1 game, we were given Delcarmen to blow it open.
So it goes for the Red Sox of late. Never quite able to seal the deal.