Watch Me Blame J.D. Drew for Last Night's Red Sox Loss

Every Red Sox loss these days is just a little bit more painful and absurd than the last. Would anybody be surprised if they lose tonight on, say, a home run ball that bounces off Josh Reddick’s head Jose Canseco style and into the bullpen? Why not? The main reason for last night’s loss, in my humble opinion, was Reddick’s AA-level error in right field.

To set the scene, there were two outs in the top of the third, with a run in and a man on second, when Baltimore’s Vladimir Guerrero lined Red Sox pitcher Erik Bedard’s offering to right field. What should have been an easy, inning-ending play got messy when Reddick broke the wrong way and then, trying to recover, had the ball tick off his glove. The man on second scored, and the Orioles went on to add two more runs in the inning after that. The error cost the Sox three runs and, almost as importantly, lengthened Bedard’s inning. He had to throw 18 more pitches to try to get out of it and, as it turned out, he never did. Before he could get that illusive third out, he got pulled. With the Sox starter unable to make it through the third, the bullpen was extra taxed, leading to the end of game Bard/Papelbon debacle.

In casting about in blame for this one, it’s hard to get too angry at Papelbon. He’s been truly outstanding all year, and that was only his second blown save of 2011. I guess we could get pissed at Bard, but he’s been so pathetic lately, it’s just sort of sad. I’ll let Bedard off the hook because he really should have been out of that third inning. Which brings us to Reddick. Here’s the thing about blaming Josh Reddick: it’s no fun. He came up from the minors this year and has surprised everybody with his relatively decent play. Instead, let’s blame J.D. Drew, who, if he had not sucked all year and then mysteriously vanished into the J.D. Drew memorial injury reserve vortex, would have been in right field last night. Without doubt, the sure-handed Drew (if nothing else, he’s a good fielder) would have easily handled that ball off of Guerrero’s bat.

The good news is that Drew is gone after this year. The bad news is, from now on, we won’t have J.D. Drew to kick around anymore. So let’s get in one last shot: Screw you, J.D. Drew. Even without playing, you cost the Sox the game.