The Red Sox left 16 men on base last night, so all of the blame can't fall on John Lackey for the 5-2 loss to the Empire. Having said that, Lackey delivered his usual 5 run (4 earned), 7-inning performance. Honestly, is this good enough from our supposed #3 starter? I won't even get into the salary issue.
Back to the real story of the night—the inability of the Red Sox to put the dagger in the substantial carcass of C.C. Sabathia. They did part of the the job in running up his pitch count (batting average against goes up exponentially for big lefty when he passes 100 pitches), but Boston left the bases loaded twice and even had the opportunity to tie the game against Rivera in the 9th. No dice.
So, despite their overall dominance of the Pinstriped Posers this year (10-3), the Sox own the slimmest of leads in the AL East (1/2 game) with Beckett in the wings to make things right.