A new Boston massacre

This is just pitiful - I may be making a blogging descent into madness watching this team try the patience of Sox fans everywhere. To his credit, Neil M is proving a true gentleman throughout - but perhaps that is because gloating would seem too easy when men play boys, and your reserve CF takes three different routes to get to a ball that, had he caught, may have meant we were still in the game.

In baseball, there can be nothing, nothing... worse than watching a pitching staff that simply cannot find the strike zone.

I appreciate that we are looking at a fantastic line-up that seems to have patience coded into their DNA, but this is just appalling. Josh Beckett hangs around long enough to walk a career high, and needless to say AL season high, nine men... seriously, 9 men in just 5 2/3 innings... 17 outs, 9 walks... ... ...

So after the 9th walk, we go to the pen, with the bases loaded, and our relief pitcher delivers 4 pitches so far divorced from the strike zone, that Cano couldn't have begun to think about taking his bat off his shoulder...

And then... as I am screaming at the TV to get Delcarmen to throw any ball over the zone, he does, and it is an out at the CF wall, except our CF isnt playing, our 4th OF is playing center, and his route to the ball is as ugly as anything you will ever see in Fenway as he drifted back and left, before working out that he should be going "other" left and sticking his glove in the air as if it might help...

Ugly, ugly, ugly.