E-Mail This Article to a Friend Bam! Smack! Zowie! The Sox bat-men get pounded in Gotham BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Losing two out of three games in September to the New York Yankees is no sin. Plenty of teams have done that or worse, and few folks are calling those squads onto the carpet to explain their behavior. After all, the Yankees are a talented and well-constructed team, one littered with All-Stars and veterans of the post-season. There is no shame in going into their house and dropping a couple of games — especially since the Boston Red Sox actually won one of the three in unexpected and dramatic fashion.

But this past weekend’s tri-gamer between the storied rivals posed a critical test of the New Englanders’ character and intestinal fortitude, and despite Friday night’s 3-2 nail-biter, one could argue that the ninth-inning heroics in game one of the series represented the sole inning that the Red Sox played well all weekend. In all of the others — 26 full innings — the local nine were dominated by a team previously perceived to be flailing away and fading fast.

Oh, sure, here comes the negative media again. But expectations were high, the Pinstripers seemed there for the taking, and still Boston for the greater part of the weekend played miserably. For a team intent on the post-season and eager to show the national baseball audience that it is the better team in the AL East, this was a curious display of its hardball handiwork and prowess.

Let’s look at where it all went wrong.

In Friday night’s game, right out of the box the Sox could do little with the offerings of Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez. Now, one must point out that all teams have had difficulties figuring out the rejuvenated Cuban’s game this season, and his 8-0 record and 2.51 ERA attest to that. But the last time El Duque faced a good team — not Cleveland, Tampa Bay, or Baltimore — he got lit up by the Twins for five runs in six-plus innings, and no doubt the established Sox hitters should have been familiar with his tendencies and unique pitching motion after so many match-ups against him.

Not on this night. In his three innings of work, Hernandez stifled the supposedly potent Sox bats on three hits and a lone run (on Johnny Damon’s solo homer in the third) with five K’s before the rains came and halted his evening. This should have been cause for celebration and extra chaw on the Boston bench, particularly when the game resumed and meatball artist Tanyon Sturtze was on the mound instead of El Duque. Sturtze, after all, had given up seven earned runs in just two-thirds of an inning three nights earlier — to powerhouse Kansas City — and was sporting a 6.47 ERA coming in. Instead, the Sox offense remained silent for the next three-and-two-thirds innings, scraping together one measly hit and in the process allowing the Yankees to move ahead, 2-1, in the fifth. The Worcester native notched five strikeouts of his own, and by the time former Soxer Tom Gordon entered the game in the top of the seventh, Sox hitters had fanned 10 times. If not for a spectacular Manny Ramirez catch in the left-field stands to rob Miguel Cairo (Miguel Cairo? Isn’t he the proud owner of six dingers in 110 games this season?) of a sure home run, it would have been 3-1 or worse.

Let’s give Boston proper respect for its ninth-inning two-run rally off Mariano Rivera that ultimately sealed the 3-2 victory — but who were the heroes in the final frame? Trot Nixon (who walked), Dave Roberts (who pinch-ran and had an admittedly critical steal of second), Orlando Cabrera (a game-tying single), and Damon (with a bloop hit that realistically should have been caught by Yankee centerfielder Kenny Lofton). That was enough for the Sox to emerge victorious — thanks to a sterling effort by Boston fifth-starter Bronson Arroyo — but Jason Varitek struck out all four times he was up, and Boston’s offense batted .188 for the contest despite the victory. Still, it was one of the most uplifting victories of the season for the team, and should have ignited some fireworks for the balance of the series.

Not so fast there, pine-tar-breath. On Saturday afternoon, Derek Lowe came out for one of his biggest starts of the year and proceeded to stink up the joint like a skunk at a garden party. Lowe entered the game having lost his last outing, but he was hardly at fault — the Sox offense failed to deliver in a 2-0 loss at Seattle — and the sinkerballer had won his six starts leading up to that (and finally dropped his ERA to below 5 for the first time since early May). But on Saturday, the Bombers slapped him around for three hits (which went with a Cabrera error and a ridiculous shoulda-been-scored-an-error lapse of judgment on Lowe’s part, extending an already-interminable inning) to take a 5-0 lead after one. As imposing a first-inning lead as that was, things got dramatically worse for Boston in the following inning, as four more Yankees crossed the plate (on five hits). Though Lowe was mercifully KO’d by an A-Rod hit off the ankle early on, reliever Terry Adams was also pretty much ineffective, allowing both inherited runners to score and giving up three runs of his own in three innings of work. By the time the fourth inning ended, the New Yorkers were up 10-0, and the visitors would need a comeback of epic proportions.

Given the Bostonians’ past offensive heroics and the previous evening’s gallant comeback, nothing was impossible; however, the Sox were unable to do anything with the Yanks’ heretofore-inconsistent starter, Jon Lieber. Lieber was coming off a less-than-stellar outing (six runs on 10 hits in five-plus innings at Baltimore), but the Sox appeared — appeared — to have run up the white flag when the deficit was a dime, because the Boston bats went hitless until the seventh inning, when David Ortiz homered. Of course, by then it was 13-0, and the Yankee fans were yukking it up throughout the ballpark while the sizable Boston contingent cowered and squirmed. The Sox made it "respectable" in the ninth by tallying three times, but Yankee scrubinski Scott Proctor was by this time on the mound, and the hitting heroes for Boston were not household names but were instead Kevin Youkilis, Roberts, Dave McCarty, and Doug Mirabelli. The supposed big bats? Before the ninth, the Sox had been held to a minuscule two hits, and the top six hitters in the starting lineup had gone a combined 1-for-16. Ouch. The 14-4 loss was a downright disgrace, but help was on the way because Pedro Martinez would take the hill the next day for the humbled-but-not-discouraged New Englanders.

On Sunday, the sun came out for the first time in the series, but the metaphorical storm clouds continued to enshroud the Boston nine as Pedro gave up a two-run home run to Yankee MVP Gary Sheffield in the very first inning, putting the visitors again in a daunting hole. A first-pitch home run by Derek Jeter in the third made it 3-0, and while the Sox bats continued to slumber (going 8-for-35 overall — .229), Martinez continued to struggle. He surrendered eight earned runs in just five innings while collecting his half-million-dollar-per-start paycheck. By the time mop-up man Pedro Astacio had contributed his second straight lousy performance (two innings, three earned runs, a cumulative ERA of 12.27 over his two forgettable relief outings), the score was 11-1, and the Bronx Bombers let loose with a host of Bronx cheers in dealing Boston its second consecutive 10-run loss. Last time I looked, the Yankees had not done that to any other team this season — not KC, not Toronto, not Baltimore, not Triple-A Columbus. Seeing them put that much of a hurting on a team that came into town breathing fire and eager to close the distance in the divisional race was truly profound and unexpected.

So who was to blame? Well, Lowe’s and Martinez’s lackluster performances on consecutive days put the team in deep holes, but the Red Sox should have been able to post some runs against the supposedly beleaguered Pinstriper pitching staff. And while the team’s total of eight runs over three games is not unprecedented, if you toss out the three inconsequential ninth-inning runs on Saturday the potent Boston bats scored but five runs over 27 innings in what was termed the biggest series of the year, as far as the divisional race went. Despite Friday’s heroics, Johnny Damon went 3-for-12 for the weekend, while Mark Bellhorn went 2-for-10 (with five K’s), Ramirez went 0-for-8, Kevin Millar went 2-for-8, Cabrera went 1-for-10, and Varitek went a mind-numbing 0-for-10 with eight punch-outs. That’s a .155 average with nine hits and 18 K’s from some of the team’s top offensive weapons. Feel the breeze, as they say.

The Yanks’ lead is back to four-and-a-half games, and the two teams meet again this upcoming weekend at Fenway (look for the Yankee Haters’ Guide on this site later this week and as a supplement to this week’s issues of the Boston and Portland Phoenixes). But the Red Sox went to New York this past weekend armed with the distinction of the league’s hottest team and failed. They had a chance to make a statement and perhaps even to get the Yankees and their fans to take them seriously, but instead they again found a way to lose — and in this case, in remarkably embarrassing fashion on consecutive days, as the Yankees scored 25 runs on 28 hits off the AL’s second-best staff.

Boston’s performance serves as a reminder that until it puts forth such efforts that stake its claim to be the American League’s best team, the New York Yankees retain the credentials and the evidence to submit that the pennant is theirs to lose.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com