BALTIMORE — Red Sox Nation: It’s officially time to panic.
The Red Sox continued their incredible collapse last night, as the Orioles scored four runs with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning off Josh Beckett to break a 2-2 tie and propel Baltimore to a 6-3 victory.
The loss dropped Boston to 6-19 since Sept. 1 and, coupled with Tampa Bay’s 5-2 win over the Yankees, leaves the Red Sox tied with the Rays in the American League Wild Card race with two games remaining in the regular season.
Now the Red Sox — who haven’t won two straight games since Aug. 27 — might need to win two in a row just to force a playoff in Tampa on Thursday.
“There’s not much to say,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. “We need to come out and get a win tomorrow. We’ve backed ourselves up about as far as we can go, so hopefully we can come out and play a nice, crisp game.”
On a night when the Red Sox desperately needed a dominant performance from their ace, Beckett failed to deliver. He allowed six runs — all earned — on seven hits in six innings, striking out five and walking four.
It looked like Beckett was in little trouble in the bottom of the sixth when, after allowing a single to Vladimir Guerrero, he forced Matt Wieters to line out to center and struck out Adam Jones. But after Beckett walked Mark Reynolds, Orioles third baseman Chris Davis ripped a double down the right field line to drive in Guerrero and give Baltimore the lead.
“I couldn’t make pitches when I needed to,” Beckett said. “I tried to bounce the changeup to Davis there, and he serves it to right field down the line.
“You can’t be [bad] when your team needs you. That’s tough, but that’s the way it is.”
Davis was followed by second baseman Robert Andino, who drove an 0-1 pitch deep to dead-center field. Jacoby Ellsbury attempted to make an over-the-shoulder catch on the warning track, but after getting his glove on the ball he smashed into the center field fence, and the ball fell from his glove and bounced away.
From there, Andino did the rest, racing around the bases to finish off an inside-the-park home run and put Baltimore ahead for good.
“He hit a good ball to center field,” said Ellsbury, who was playing shallow. “I thought I had a good shot at catching it off the bat. I knew it’d be close, and was hoping I’d have maybe a little bit more room, but then I hit the wall.”
The Red Sox had an opportunity to get back into the game in the eighth when they loaded the bases with one out, but Orioles reliever Pedro Strop struck out Jarrod Saltalamacchia and forced Scutaro to ground out to short to get out of the inning unscathed.
They gave themselves another chance in the top of the ninth, when Dustin Pedroia’s one-out RBI single off Baltimore closer Jim Johnson drove in Ellsbury. But after David Ortiz’s infield single brought the tying run to the plate, Adrian Gonzalez flied out to left and Jed Lowrie struck out swinging to end it.
“Tonight we left a lot of guys on and didn’t get that big hit, and they did,” Pedroia said. “When we don’t get that big hit at the right time, you don’t win. When you don’t pitch and play defense, you don’t win. We’ve got to do all three at the same time.
“If we do all three at the same time, we’re a great team. If we don’t, we’re not good, just like anybody else.”
Except the Red Sox have been worse than just about everyone else for a month now, and it could cost them a playoff spot — an unthinkable outcome just a few weeks ago.
“We’ll come out [today] and play as hard as we can,” Pedroia said. “That’s all we can do.”