Lost (and lost and lost and lost) Weekend

You could have looked at the schedule last spring and seen this one coming. It’s happened before, more than once. Find an August or September four-game series against the Yankees and you’ll know when the Red Sox will be packing it in.

September 7-10, 1978: Boston is up four games, loses four straight to end the series in a tie. The Sox then lose two-of-three in New York the next weekend plus the playoff game. That’s one win in eight tries down the stretch. Just one more win there would have made the playoff game unnecessary.

August 18-21, 2006: The four-game series becomes a five-gamer due to a rainout. Sox lose all five and go from a manageable 2½ games back to 7½ behind. Boston plays out the string 17-24 and finishes third.

August 6-9, 2009: Recap unnecessary.

The teams have switched personalities, roles and results since last April and May.

Then: Behind 6-0? No problem! Varitek will homer to bring us close, Bay will tie it in the ninth (I think that was the last home run he hit), Youk will win it in the 11^th.

Now: Can we at least get a run here?

Then: The Yankees relief pitchers will all be in Scranton next week and they’ll try a new batch until they get it right.

Now: The Sox are bringing up a new pitcher from Pawtucket every day. Hello, Billy Traber. Goodbye, Billy Traber. Hello, Enrique Gonzalez. Goodbye, Enrique Gonzales. Hello, Fernando Cabrera. Who’s next?

Then: So what if they have Mark Teixeira, he’s only hitting .195. We have Jason Bay.

Now: In the last month Jason Bay is hitting .203.

Then: We have too many pitchers. Maybe we should trade one or two of them.

Now: Hello, Billy Traber. Goodbye, Billy Traber. Hello, Enrique Gonzalez. Goodbye, Enrique Gonzales. Hello, Fernando Cabrera.

The seeds of this weekend’s debacle were sown last winter, when Theo Epstein decided to shop in the dead pitchers department of K-Mart and came away with Brad Penny and John Smoltz. Meanwhile Brian Cashman was taking the elevator to the aces department at Bloomingdale’s to shop for CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett, each of whom threw zeros at the Sox.

You get what you pay for.

So where do we go from here? Well, for the short term, on into the rest of the season, we can hope the lethargic team can put this weekend behind them and show some life for the last seven weeks of the season. Theo is out trying to plug some more of the leaks. Paul Byrd is waiting in the wings (think about that one). What, Brian Rose wasn’t available? And he put in a waiver claim on Washington’s Cristian Guuuuuuzman to play shortstop. I guess Tim Naehring didn’t want to come out of retirement.

And we can only hope that Theo has learned his lesson and will at least shop at Target when the hot stoves are lit next winter, because you know that Brian Cashman will be back at Bloomingdale’s.