Red Sox @ Blue Jays: The stopper falters as the offense sputters

How better to kick off my weekend duties at TBL than by reminiscing about a game (which the Sox lost 11-0) I'm sure we'd all rather forget?

Up to this point, Jon Lester's really made a case to be team MVP for the 2008 season. He may not have the most flashy stats and he'll probably never instill fear in hitters the way other lefties like Lefty Grove, Steve Carlton, Sandy Koufax and Randy Johnson have, but he's become perhaps the most reliable starter the Sox have and looks poised to be a mainstay at the front end of the rotation for many years to come.

So it was all the more surprising when Lester (you know, the Jon Lester who'd only lost one game in the past three months and who's also won a team-high 5 games following a loss), who's gone 9-1 since the beginning of June, looked pretty mediocre in 2.1 innings, the shortest start of his career.

The scoring got underway when oft-injured Vernon Wells smacked a two-run homer in the first. After that, Jose Bautista plated another run in the second thanks to a sac fly. 3 runs in 2 innings is hardly ideal, but we've seen Lester come back from worse and all it takes is a couple base hits to get the Sox back into it. Unfortunately, the wheels fell off in the third.

After Wells collected his second hit off Lester (a single to left), Cora made a nice diving play but threw the ball away while trying to go to second, allowing both runners to get into scoring position. Five batters later, the score was 7-0, Lester was yanked in favor of Chris Smith, and the Sox were permanently out of the game as the offense could never get going. Lester left with a line of 2.1 IP, 7 ER, 8 H, 2 BB, 2 K.

Speaking of the offense, there were a few troubling occurrences other than the lack of hitting (the Sox got 4 as a team) and the leaving of men on base (17). First off, Youk went 1-for-4 with 3 strikeouts. I've been as big a proponent of Youk as anyone this year, but he's bound to cool off and perhaps we're starting to see it. Also, with Lowell, Drew and Casey out at the moment, the lineup is spread remarkably thin. A 7-8-9 of Tek, Cora and Crisp isn't exactly what you'd call formidable, so the injury bug has to quit biting at some point (hopefully).

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