Red Sox Hit Hard by Trade Deficits

The baseball season came calling again for the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night, a continent and a day removed from a weekend that was unflattering in the best moments, and season-crippling in the worst.

Not only had they lost five games in four days to the New York Yankees, the Red Sox had gone through pitchers as though they were Wet-Naps, and roster spots as though they were Dixie cups.

Their standing in the AL East followed, of course, a five-game free fall that dumped them 6 1/2 games behind the Yankees, leaving few Red Sox -- from General Manager Theo Epstein to Manager Terry Francona to anyone wearing eye black -- unexamined.

Pondered from one pole (Pesky) to another (Fisk), it was concluded generally that front-office stubbornness (Damon, Johnny; Abreu, Bobby), roster maladies (Varitek, Jason; Nixon, Trot; Wakefield, Tim; Gonzalez, Alex) and pitching frailties (all but Schilling, Curt; Wells, David) had conspired to turn a regular-season series into something epic, a five-game losing streak into a modern-day massacre.

So goes the baseball in Boston, where a long weekend can redirect the course of a franchise, or expose all the places it should have been redirected, as told by the headline writers and Sam Adams drinkers.

Besides, reasoned Francona, “If you’re not good enough, now’s not the time for us to evaluate. It just won’t work out that way.”

As the Red Sox packed and headed to Anaheim, where they’d face a decidedly less finicky Angels lineup, it was Epstein who had gone all Stoneman at the trading deadline and had most of the explaining to do. The pricey Abreu, shopped by the Philadelphia Phillies for months leading into the deadline, had relocated to the Yankees and not the Red Sox, as had Cory Lidle. And last winter, for $3 million annually more than the Red Sox thought fiscally savvy, Damon had gone off to inspire the Yankees, much as he had the Red Sox.

By Monday afternoon, they’d all added their footprints to the backs of the Red Sox, even Lidle, who’d reportedly been included in the Yankees deal because New York’s GM, Brian Cashman, understood the Red Sox to be hot on Lidle.

Well, Red Sox, welcome to Anaheim, where the contending Angels habitually treat the trading deadline as just another day to cross off on the way to October. The Angels and their general manager also are in second place, also could have used a bat that operates as Abreu’s does, and also declined, holding instead to the promise of young arms and approaching bats.

The difference is, the Oakland A’s didn’t come in and win almost a week’s worth of games here while the baseball universe leaned in and kicked loose every infield pebble.

Oh, and the Angels don’t routinely operate in the shadow of George Steinbrenner and the empire some swear is evil. Besides, they usually beat the Yankees.

So the Red Sox dragged their tired arms and yawning manager into The OC for the first of three games, having made a transaction a day since Thursday, and having tossed aside pitchers Jason Johnson and Rudy Seanez almost before the timers on their ice packs had gone off. They’d also had Manny Ramirez grab his right hamstring, meaning Kevin Youkilis batted cleanup Tuesday night behind David Ortiz. Ramirez flied to center field as a pinch-hitter in the ninth. Regular shortstop Gonzalez had some back soreness and landed on the disabled list, and Dustin Pedroia, wearing No. 64 and carrying an Eckstein-like stature and reputation, started in his place.

They handed the ball to lanky right-hander Kyle Snyder, a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency starter who’d pitched twice over the weekend and shared in the staff’s startling 935 pitches over five games. Needing innings and having Snyder on a 75-or-so-pitch leash, the Red Sox were delighted to have him go five. He gave up three runs, one following a fluke double by Vladimir Guerrero, then handed off to newcomer Kason Gabbard, who gave up the Angels’ fourth run. The Red Sox lost their sixth in a row, 4-3, when Youkilis couldn’t quite get a fly ball over Vladimir Guerrero’s head in right field with two out and two on in the ninth.

Afterward, Francona stayed the course of staying the course.

“It’s not been a lot of fun right now, and it’s not supposed to be,” he said. “Not only do me and the staff believe in them, I really believe they believe in themselves as a team.... We’re going to keep playing. That’s all we can do.

“The day I come in here dragging, those guys don’t deserve that. And it won’t happen. We’ve had plenty of good times. I’m not going to bail on these guys now, or the organization.”

Though they’d been saved somewhat by long, sturdy starts by first Schilling and then Wells in losses Nos. 4 and 5, there was a sense the Red Sox were thin on both sides of the ball Tuesday, and perhaps emotionally spent after the longest weekend of their baseball lives.

Coco Crisp, who replaced Damon in center field and at the top of the order and stood by as Damon outplayed him, shrugged and smiled.

“You move past it, whatever it is,” Crisp said. “If you have a relative who passes on, you have to move along. I mean, it’s not the same thing, but it’s that kind of thinking. We have to make the best of it and finish strong. We still have a chance.”