Red Sox 2, Athletics 9: The Justin Masterson experience

The winning streak will have to wait for another day, week, month...let's not go so far as year...as the Athletics put up nine runs in an easy rout of the Red Sox Tuesday night.

File this one under "Masterson disaster," because no matter what the offense did, their starting pitcher assured they'd have little chance tonight. The Athletics stacked the lineup against him, with seven of nine batters capable of hitting left-handed. But for Masterson, all that really mattered was that they had a pulse and a bat.

It was the usual high-80s junk from Masterson that wound up blasted all over the park, which is no surprise as that's pretty much all he's got to offer. Marcus Semien nearly left the park to dead center with a one-out triple in the first, then scored on a sharp ground ball single from Josh Reddick to right.  With Stephen Vogt crushing a middle-middle offering from Masterson out to right to make it 3-0 with two outs in the book.

The night didn't get much better from there for Masterson, who allowed another run in the second, and then a leadoff solo shot to Josh Reddick to make it 5-0. His night was over after walking Stephen Vogt in the catcher's second trip to the plate, and Steven Wright came in to really put it away, allowing two runs to score on an Eric Sogard single and surrendering the third Athletics homer of the night to Marcus Semien in the fourth.

Wright, at least, managed to recover well enough to keep the Red Sox from having to completely blow their pen on a lost game. It's a silver lining that can be tossed in with a couple hits (and one bad out on the basepaths) from Dustin Pedroia, and a night from Mike Napoli that was more encouraging than his one hit suggests.

If we're talking about what could really make this game a success, though, it'd be if that was that for Justin Masterson. It's not going to get any better for him anytime soon, and every game the Red Sox give him is a game wasted. The Red Sox need more than one answer to fix their rotation, but it should all start with getting Masterson out. He's broken, and there's no easy fix available.