Boston Fans Are Seeing Red Again

There is no worse thing to be in sports right now than a member of the Boston Red Sox. They’ve lost six straight games in 10 days to the hated New York Yankees and Yankee fans are laughing at them. It is embarrassing and maddening. It is depressing and frustrating. Their general manager answers questions from fans during an Internet chat session, but Dan Duquette can’t be bothered to talk to his players.

Duquette goes on a Boston radio talk show and proclaims Pedro Martinez is healthy, while Martinez, the franchise pitcher, the Cy Young award winner, is in the clubhouse wondering why his shoulder hurts so much. He also mentions Martinez is getting paid very well to pitch and so it would be good if he pitched.

“What I don’t appreciate is Duquette saying I’m healthy because it’s not true,” Martinez said. “I’m doing the best I can to help the team. I don’t need to be pushed. If you want, I can leave you the damn paycheck up there [in the front office.] Take it, and I’ll go home and rehab my shoulder and not feel guilty about anything.”

The Red Sox, despite injuries galore, are still in second place in the American League East in mid-August, still just a few games behind the Yankees and still within a couple of games of the AL wild card, when Duquette fires the manager, Jimy Williams, and replaces him with a mild-mannered pitching coach named Joe Kerrigan. And Kerrigan gets a two-year contract extension.

And the Red Sox have gone 6-16 since and aren’t a threat to the Yankees or anyone else. Instead of getting better, things got worse.

David Cone gave up only one run against the Yankees on national television and he lost the game because Mike Mussina pitched a perfect game until there were two outs in the ninth. That’s bad luck. But then Duquette fired pitching coach John Cumberland right after the game, a move that seemed mean-spirited and nasty, at least to one of the Boston stars, Nomar Garciaparra, who was overheard by beat writers shouting: “That’s why no one wants to play here.” The Red Sox had their game against the Yankees postponed by rain Monday night and it was the happiest time in the Red Sox clubhouse in months. The Red Sox could sneak out of town, in the dead of a mean night and be saved a final ignominy.

It was all set. Nearly 50,000 fans were at Yankee Stadium. Roger Clemens, once left for dead by Duquette, was going to beat the Red Sox and become the first pitcher in major league history to win 20 of his first 21 games. Clemens wanted to do this, badly. Clemens was angry that thunderstorms dared to hang around Yankee Stadium long enough to ruin his evening. “It would’ve been great theater,” Yankee Manager Joe Torre said. “[Roger] was panting in here.”

Clemens is no fan of Duquette. Duquette let Clemens go off to the Blue Jays and now he’s with the Yankees and having a great time, going 19-1 this season and winning World Series rings, which he never would have gotten with the Red Sox.

But Clemens had said he’d love to set this record against a Duquette team. And then it rained and the Red Sox were off the hook. “A rainout would be better than a loss,” one Red Sox infielder had grumbled before the game. “I’m anonymous on this,” he also said. There’s that old fighting spirit every team needs.

Once this year the Red Sox were ahead of the Yankees and everybody else in the American League East. But Fenway was the unhappiest place on earth--to rework a slogan from the owners of another baseball team known more for bad luck than good results--but the Red Sox spent nearly five months playing pretty good baseball. It was a false front the Red Sox were presenting to their fans, to the opponents, to everybody. Garciaparra, who had hit nearly .400 for much of last season, had wrist surgery during spring training, came back six weeks ago, but is sitting out again, probably for the rest of the season ... unless Duquette goes on the radio or the Internet and proclaims Garciaparra, his franchise everyday player, healthy.

While it was a badly-kept secret that Duquette and Williams didn’t get along and that Williams antagonized many players, it was still a shock when he was fired Aug. 16. The team was playing well. Why would you not wait until after the season? That was the logical question. Why hand over the team to an inexperienced pitching coach when any number of qualified and experienced managers might be available after the season?

Kerrigan has not made the questions stop.

He was most spectacularly second-guessed after an Aug. 31 loss to the Yankees. Kerrigan removed Frank Castillo, who had pitched seven shutout innings and thrown only 89 pitches, with Boston leading Clemens, 1-0. Reliever Derek Lowe, who had a 7.81 ERA against New York, gave up a two-run, eighth-inning home run to Jorge Posada. Boston lost, 3-1, and fell seven games behind the Yankees instead of pulling within five.

Kerrigan had a pregame team meeting Monday. He had been furious Sunday when triple-A call-up Izzy Alcantara didn’t run out a foul popup.

“All I’ll say about the meeting is this: It was basically a one-way meeting,” Kerrigan said. “I didn’t ask for any input and I didn’t get any input.” Monday’s was the last scheduled game between the Yankees and Red Sox. It probably won’t be made up. Clemens might win No. 20 tonight against the White Sox. The Yankees will be in the playoffs. The Red Sox won’t. Again.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com