Clay Buchholz pitched beautifully, but wound up with a no-decision.
Boston Red Sox's Carl Crawford had an RBI double in the first inning of Saturday's game against the Minnesota Twins at Fenway Park.BOSTON - Those alarm bells are ringing. That bottom is falling out.
The Red Sox have lost four in a row, they face a possible sweep by the lowly Minnesota Twins, and anyone who thinks this season is spinning in a positive direction is residing in Dream Land.
Joe Mauer's two-out, two-strike home run plated three runs in the ninth inning Saturday night, when the Twins scored four times for a shocking 6-4 win over the reeling Red Sox at Fenway Park.
Mauer had run the count to 3-2 on Alfredo Aceves, who had masterfully escaped an eighth-inning jam he did not create. But the ninth was a different story, with Minnesota wiping out a 4-2 deficit.
"Aceves did a great job in the eighth. There was some leakage in the ninth,'' Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine said.
Leakage? Figuratively speaking, this team is showing cracks in every bit of infrastructure that is supposed to make it hum.
Mauer's home run overshadowed Pedro Ciriaco's first career home run, a pinch-hit drive in the eighth that broke a 2-2 tie.
Cody Ross' subsequent RBI single seemed to lift the Red Sox out of danger. This team can't seem to escape trouble, though.
Aceves thought he had Mauer struck out on a 2-2 pitch on the outside corner, but plate umpire David Rackley gave the Twins' star one more chance.That was all that was needed by Mauer, who was hitting .389 with runners in scoring position and two out.
Until Aceves became the goat, he was in line to be a hero. He had inherited a 2-1 lead with the bases loaded and no out in the ninth, and did a splended job to hold the Twins to only the tying run.
Ciriaco's drive came moments later and gave Boston a 3-2 lead. The Red Sox tacked on an insurance run when Carl Crawford was hit by a pitch, stole second and scored on Cody Ross' single.
Rather than get a six-out win, Aceves allowed four runs on four hits with a wild pitch in the ninth. He fell to 2-7.
His team fell to 53-55 with a four-game losing streak. The Twins will go for a sweep of the four-game series Sunday.
Clay Buchholz allowed only one run (unearned) in seven innings. He got a no-decision on a night he deserved a win.
"I feel for Clay, but I feel for all of our guys right now,'' Valentine said.
It was all working out until the eighth, when Buchholz handed the ball to Andrew Miller with a parade of Twins left-handers coming up.
Lefties were hitting only .125 against Miller. Two walks and an infield hit later, Aceves was summoned to deal with the emergency.
Justin Morneau's sacrifice fly tied it, but Aceves retired the next two batters. Ciriaco then took the stage, but Mauer had the last statement.
After the game, Valentine was asked why he went with Miller and not Craig Breslow, the newly-acquired lefty reliever and Boston's only trade deadline addition.
"Breslow is a contact guy,'' the manager began. But he wasn't done.
"If I had known Miller was going to put the first three guys on base, I know what I would have done. I'd have brought in Breslow,'' Valentine added.
Red Sox ownership was at Fenway Saturday. This loss and its nature has fired up rumors about whether Valentine might not be around much longer.
All of that is speculation. What is fact is that Boston is 53-55 at the two-thirds mark of the season, and on a four-game tailspin that followed an encouraging three-game winning streak against the New York Yankees and Detroit.
Aceves blew the lead, but the offense didn't do much, either. The Red Sox had six hits.
After the Twins rallied in the ninth, the Red Sox went down in order and their own fans booed them off the field.
The Twins are going nowhere but showed the spunk and the life. The Red Sox did not, at least once the final results were tallied - but maybe they're going nowhere as well.