Anything that could’ve gone wrong for Matt Albers did. The 28-year-old righty, who had been stellar all season for the Red Sox, was called upon in the eighth inning of Saturday’s game against the Cubs to bridge the gap to Jonathan Papelbon with usual setup man Daniel Bard scheduled for a day off.

But the only thing Albers set up was a Cubs win. He surrendered singles to Darwin Barney and Starlin Castro to start the inning and followed that with walks to Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena and a double to Reed Johnson that turned a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 deficit. To top it all off, Pena trotted home when Jed Lowrie dropped Alfonso Soriano’s pop-up.

Albers would ultimately be charged with six runs, five of them earned. He threw 31 pitches without recording an out, setting a dubious Red Sox record in the process. That was also the most pitches thrown by an American League pitcher without getting an out in recorded history.

“It’s definitely frustrating,” Albers said. “We get the lead, and coming into the game, I want to shut the door and get that win. … I had a few guys two strikes and just wasn’t able to put them away. They had a couple tough at-bats and then a couple back-to-back walks hurt me.”

Catcher Jason Varitek said Albers’ biggest problem in the inning was his location.

“Matty was just missing,” Varitek said. “Matty’s done such a good job for us, but it was one of those things where guys took some good swings on some good pitches and got those first two hits. Then on the walks, he wasn’t overly wild, but he was just missing.” Read the rest of this entry »

With a 3-1 lead after seven, you would expect Daniel Bard to take the mound for the Red Sox in the eighth inning. That didn’t happen Saturday night, however, even though Bard was expected to be available after not pitching Friday night. The reason for Bard not being used is unclear as of now, but there should be some sort of answer during postgame interviews.

Instead, Terry Francona called upon Matt Albers for setup duty. Simply put, that proved disastrous. Albers gave up six runs (five earned) on three hits and two walks all while failing to record an out.

Francona didn’t get anyone else warming up in the bullpen until after Albers (0-2) had already walked in a run. By the time Franklin Morales was ready for his Sox debut, it was too late. Alfonso Soriano had driven in two with a double off the Monster and Carlos Pena had scored on a Jed Lowrie error to make it 5-3 Cubs.

The meltdown continued, as Morales gave up two hits and a walk to go along with two more errors by the guys behind him. When it was all said and done, the Cubs scored eight runs in the eighth to blow the game open en route to a 9-3 win.

The loss was the Sox’ first in eight games, and it cost them a chance to move into a first-place tie with the Rays in the division.

Alfredo Aceves did his part in his first start of the season, as he held the Cubs to one run on three hits over five innings and left the game in line for the win.

David Ortiz belted his 300th home run with the Sox and Kevin Youkilis extended his hitting streak to nine games in the loss. Read the rest of this entry »

Making your first appearance with a team like the Red Sox can be a daunting task. Ideally, Terry Francona would like to make it a little less dramatic for recently acquired reliever Franklin Morales.

“It would be great to get him in maybe not such a high-leverage situation his first outing, but that may not be possible,” Francona said Saturday. “The biggest thing is just get to know him, see what’s going on there and let [pitching coach Curt Young] kind of have his two cents.”

Morales, who was acquired from the Rockies on Thursday, arrived in Boston Friday night and warmed up in the bullpen in the eighth inning of Boston’s 15-5 trouncing of the Cubs. Francona said he never planned to use him in the game, though.

“That was just to let him get his legs under him and get that flight out of his system,” Francona said. “We didn’t want to do it earlier in the game just in case we needed him.”

Morales comes to the Sox with an arsenal of pitches that includes a mid-90s fastball, a curve, a slider and a changeup. His stuff was good enough to make him one of the top prospects in Colorado’s system, but the 25-year-old lefty’s control has been inconsistent at the big-league level.

“He’s got all the pitches. He just needs to pound the zone,” Francona said. “If we can get to that point, this is going to be good.”

John Lackey is no longer feeling pain in his elbow as he resumes throwing. (AP)

John Lackey threw Saturday for the second time since receiving a cortisone shot on Monday. He threw 50 times from 120 feet on flat ground while being watched by both pitching coach Curt Young and trainer Mike Reinold.

The Sox were extremely pleased not just that Lackey (2-5, 8.01 ERA) showed good arm strength but also that he is expressing some relief about how good he feels physically.

“His arm’s feeling good. … He’s feeling pain-free,” said Young. “As a pitcher, when there’s something going on with your arm, it’s going to affect you both physically and mentally. Your arm’s never perfect, but you don’t want to feel any pain that is affecting how you whip your arm. I think that might have been the case with him.”

Lackey is currently on the 15-day disabled list with a strained right elbow. Manager Terry Francona said the plan moving forward is for Lackey to join the team on its upcoming seven-game road trip and continue to throw. He said there hasn’t been any decision made about a possible minor-league rehab stint.

“We’ll see. He really wasn’t down very long, which is good,” Francona said. “When there’s a shutdown of a guy not throwing for a couple weeks, that kind of interrupts what you’ve done. He really didn’t miss a whole lot of time. Saying that, there’s a reason he was shut down. If a guy goes from the two-week DL to seven innings, I don’t know if that’s in anybody’s best interest. So we have to figure that out.”

Francona also provided updates on Bobby Jenks and Marco Scutaro. He said Jenks “threw very well” Saturday and that he’ll play catch again Sunday before throwing a bullpen session Monday.

As for Scutaro, Francona said he could start swinging a bat sometime this week, but that Scutaro has yet to indicate that he is pain-free. Francona said once a player is pain-free, the team’s rule of thumb is to have him wait a couple days before doing anything.

Jon Lester got the win Friday night to improve to 6-1, but it was far from pretty. He gave up five runs on a career-high 12 hits and didn’t record a single 1-2-3 inning in six frames.

The outing continued a troubling stretch for Lester, who has now given up four or more runs in each of his last three starts. This marks just the fourth such streak of his career and the first since April 2010.

“I’m just not executing pitches,” Lester said. “Pitches that I felt like I did throw pretty well, they got some hits on. That’s just the way it’s going right now.”

The string of bad starts certainly raises questions about whether Lester is 100-percent healthy or whether something’s wrong with his delivery, but the left-hander insisted there aren’t any physical or mechanical problems.

“Execute pitches, that’s all it is,” Lester said. “It sounds easy, but sometimes it’s not. I didn’t do that tonight and they made me pay for it.”

When asked to elaborate on his execution, Lester said there are a number of factors that go into that.

“It’s location, ball’s not down,” he said. “I had chances to put guys away and didn’t do it. You can go down the list. There’s a lot of things. I’m not doing my job right now.”

Lester said he hasn’t changed anything in terms of preparation before or during this rough patch, and that he doesn’t plan on doing so now.

“Nope, same stuff,” he said. “Just go out there and continue to work on the stuff that’s gotten me to this point. I’m not going to change anything. I’m not going to the drawing board.

“Come back tomorrow, get back to work and go get ‘em in five days.”

The Red Sox made it seven straight wins Friday night with a 15-5 thrashing of the Cubs. Their bats exploded for double-digit runs for the first time this season. With the win, the Sox leapfrogged the Yankees for second in the division and moved within a half game of the first-place Rays. This is the closest they’ve been to first since the season started.

Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Youkilis led the offensive surge with a combined seven hits and seven RBI. Gonzalez notched his first four-hit game and first four-RBI game with the Sox. Youkilis’ night included his eighth home run of the season, a rocket to left that cleared everything and wound up on Lansdowne Street.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia also went deep when he belted his second homer of the season off the Volvo sign above the Monster seats in the fifth inning. Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and Jed Lowrie all contributed multi-hit efforts to the cause as well.

The Sox scored multiple runs in four of the first five innings and chased Cubs starter Doug Davis (0-2) from the game after just 3 2/3 innings.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses for the Sox, however. Although he got the win, Jon Lester (6-1) struggled all night long. He gave up five runs on a career-high 12 hits in six innings of work. He didn’t have a single 1-2-3 inning.

Friday marked the third straight start that Lester gave up at least four runs, the fourth such streak of his career and first since April 2010, when he did so in his first three outings of the season. Between the end of that streak and the beginning of this one, Lester allowed four or more runs just eight times in 32 starts. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a busy 24 hours for the Red Sox. In addition to winning in walk-off fashion Thursday night and preparing for a much-hyped weekend series with the Cubs, Terry Francona also announced a number of roster moves before Friday’s game.

Perhaps the most notable is that top shortstop prospect Jose Iglesias was optioned back to Pawtucket. The fielding wizard stirred up quite a bit of excitement when he was called up last week, but he registered just four at-bats in six games. Francona said everyone knew he needed more playing time than that.

“We thought [Marco Scutaro] would possibly be just a two-week DL, but it looks like it’s going to linger a little bit more than that,” Francona said. “[Iglesias] needs to play. He even understood that. I thought the experience was really good for him. I thought he did a good job paying attention, kind of following [Dustin Pedroia] around, things like that.

“But he needed to play. With Jed [Lowrie] about playing every day, I don’t think we need to have just a backup shortstop.”

The Sox purchased the contract of PawSox infielder Drew Sutton to replace Iglesias on the big-league roster. The 28-year-old has been stellar in Pawtucket, batting .304 with five home runs, 26 RBI and a .906 OPS.

“We might not want him out there every day, but he can go out there and play short, we can move him around, he can switch-hit and give you a professional at-bat,” Francona said. Read the rest of this entry »