It’s the Error of Their Ways

So this is playoff baseball?

Bobbled grounders. Players falling asleep on the base paths. Others unable to get a bunt down.

It wasn’t that the Boston Red Sox defeated the Angels on Wednesday night at Angel Stadium so much as they survived their early ineptitude.

In any event, the Red Sox rode their 8-3 comedy-of-errors victory to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five American League division series.

“This is a tough place to play,” Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon said. “The people banging those sticks is tough and that Rally Monkey thing is pretty funny.”

Consider all the Red Sox had to overcome and how the Angels handed over the game.

The scorecard may not have shown any errors but there were plenty of boneheaded plays to go around.

In the second inning, having already scored a run and with the bases loaded, two out and clean-up batter David Ortiz at the plate, Mark Bellhorn fell asleep while leading off second base.

Angel catcher Jose Molina threw down to pick him off -- Bellhorn actually tripped and fell before reaching the bag -- to end the inning. Ortiz could have given the Red Sox a commanding lead and knocked Angel starter Bartolo Colon, who threw 55 pitches in the first two innings, out of the game.

Instead, Colon lasted six innings and 114 pitches. But before departing, he would have a brain cramp of his own.

In the fifth, Molina led off with a popup to no-man’s land that landed between Boston shortstop Orlando Cabrera and left fielder Manny Ramirez for a hit. Cabrera initially gave chase but gave up on the ball, thinking Ramirez would be there. There’s a reason Ramirez is known for his hitting and not his fielding.

Next, David Eckstein could not get a bunt down.

No matter, he promptly singled.

More zaniness ensued when Chone Figgins attempted to bunt but popped up, the ball caught by Boston third baseman Bill Mueller.

A pitch later, Pedro Martinez hit Darin Erstad to load the bases for Vladimir Guerrero, who singled to give the Angels a 3-2 lead. The rally seemed alive, even without a jumping monkey on the video board.

But in a game that seemed off-kilter from the start and with Martinez seemingly struggling, Garret Anderson stung a Martinez offering. It went straight to first baseman Kevin Millar, who simply stepped on the bag to double up Guerrero and end the inning.

Other lowlights: Figgins, whose throwing error to home plate in Game 1 ignited the Red Sox to their 9-3 victory, bobbled a Mueller grounder in the seventh inning, then double-clutched while attempting to turn a double play on Damon one batter later.

Damon was safe and would score the go-ahead run on Ramirez’s sacrifice fly to center field.

And, oh yes, Damon was in scoring position because of the first of two Francisco Rodriguez wild pitches.

The Red Sox even survived Cabrera’s striking out in the eighth inning when he fouled off a two-strike Rodriguez offering while trying to bunt.

But perhaps the most painful mistake for Angel fans was Colon’s approach to Jason Varitek in the sixth inning.

Colon already had struck out Varitek twice, but Colon grooved the first pitch of the at-bat just enough that Varitek was able to drive the ball into the right-field stands for a score-tying two-run homer.

There were two outs.