Boston’s Tee-Off Party Sinks Angels

As if waiting out the excruciatingly deliberate Jon Lester, the Boston left-hander who pondered each pitch as if it were the Eternal Paradox, wasn’t exasperating enough, the Angels had this kind of frustration to cope with in a 5-4 loss to the Red Sox Wednesday night:

Fourth inning, runner on second base, one out, they don’t score. Fifth inning, two on, none out, they don’t score. Sixth inning, bases loaded, one out, they score only once. Seventh inning, bases loaded, one out, they don’t score. Eighth inning, runner on second, one out, they don’t score.

On and on it went for the Angels, who were three for 15 with runners in scoring position, left 11 men on base, stranding five at third, and who failed to deliver that one big blow to release all the tension mounting in Angel Stadium.

Closer Jonathan Papelbon slammed the door on the last of those rallies, striking out Orlando Cabrera, who had three hits and two runs, with a 94-mph fastball to end the eighth inning with a runner on third base.

Papelbon retired the side in order in the ninth for his 33rd save to help end the Red Sox’s six-game losing streak and the Angels’ five-game winning streak.

The kicker for the Angels: First-place Oakland beat Toronto, dropping the Angels five games back in the American League West.

“We just couldn’t get that ball to go through at the right time or make contact at some points,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “We didn’t get it done. We didn’t play well enough to get it done, that’s the bottom line.”

They couldn’t catch a break either. After Cabrera doubled to open the seventh and Juan Rivera walked with one out, Robb Quinlan lined a single to right-center field. But the hit hung in the air long enough for Cabrera to have to hold near second base until the ball dropped a few feet in front of right fielder Eric Hinske.

Cabrera could advance only to third, and reliever Mike Timlin, who had a 9.72 earned-run average in August, struck out Tim Salmon looking and got Howie Kendrick on a weak grounder to the mound.

“Some balls you can score on, some you can’t score on, there’s nothing you can do about it,” Cabrera said. “It’s tough. It looked like he was going to catch it, and I didn’t want the inning to end like that. Maybe if I took a chance I would have scored, but we had the bases loaded and one out, there’s a good chance I’d score.”

It was an uphill climb all night for the Angels, because for the first two innings it seemed the Red Sox had gone from the Boston Massacre -- the working title for their five-game weekend sweep at the hands of the rival New York Yankees -- to the Boston Tee Party, so thoroughly did they tee off on starter Kelvim Escobar.

David Ortiz hit a two-run home run in the first, increasing his major league-leading totals to 45 homers and 119 runs batted in, and after Vladimir Guerrero’s run-scoring double pulled the Angels to within 2-1 in the bottom of the inning, Wily Mo Pena hit a two-run homer to left field for a 4-1 Red Sox lead.

Javy Lopez doubled and scored on Coco Crisp’s single to give Boston a 5-1 lead, but Escobar (9-11) struck out Dustin Pedroia to begin a stretch in which he retired 11 consecutive batters before Hinske’s leadoff single in the sixth. Hinske was wiped out on Kevin Youkilis’ double-play grounder and Escobar retired the next seven batters.

Escobar’s recovery gave the Angels a chance to come back, and they rallied for two runs in the third when Jose Molina singled, Cabrera doubled, Guerrero was intentionally walked and Juan Rivera hit a two-run single.

The Angels threatened in the fifth, putting two on with none out when Maicer Izturis walked and Cabrera, after throwing his hands up because Lester (7-2) spent so much time in the stretch, singled to center field.

But Guerrero hit into a double play and Rivera popped to second. The Angels loaded the bases against Julian Tavarez with one out in the sixth but mustered only one run, when Chone Figgins beat out a fielder’s choice grounder to trim the lead to 5-4.