According to many fair-weather Red Sox fans, the loss of the first game may spell doom for the Boston team.
Out in the lost wilds of Texas, where longhorns are periodically turned into prime beef, the Red Sox were succulent morsels for the Texas Rangers.
Rounded up like the usual suspects, the team that only a week ago had fans humming 100 wins this season began to sink like the sun after a hot day into the Western sky.
Those who had picked Jon Lester to win the Cy Young Award questioned their folly as he gave up three home runs in his five innings of toil. He didn’t pitch badly in a losing cause. He simply mislaid his pitches like Easter eggs.
Carl Crawford, savior from the Grapefruit ball clubs of Florida, began to look like another big gun brought in years ago. Alas, Houston home run king Roman Mejias never quite turned into the home-run hitting outfielder that the Sox had hoped for in 1963.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, whose name is the longest for a Sox catcher since Pepper Jim Pagliaroni, lost track of his called pitches and began calling time out.
On a positive note, San Diego native Adrian Gonzalez began to look like San Diego native Ted Williams. Alas, Ted played on some fairly poor teams over the years.
David Ortiz slammed a late inning home run to tie the game, and it almost seemed like a stampede of Red Sox might steer the Texas team in the direction of defeat.
Alas, something was rotten in the dugout of the Red Sox.
Had my ears heard correctly, was Fat Albert warming up in the Red Sox bullpen?
No, it was Matt Albers. Phew, that was close.
Instead, the new Mighty Casey came to the mound, but alas he did not strike out the opponents, but only himself. Daniel Bard met the lions and they ate him up in a big gulp.
Cheer up, Sox fans. This losing streak cannot go much longer than 162 losses in a row. It almost makes you yearn for the good old days of spring training. They never lost more than 10 in a row back then.
Blame it on April Fools.
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