4/27 at Tampa Bay Rays (3-0 L)
Swept down in Tampa Bay... sounds like the title of a bad country song. Sure the Rays are a better team than some people give them credit for and they have great young players, but there's not much that's more humiliating than dropping three in a row in their house. The Sox managed just 2 hits which came from Dustin Pedroia and of all people, Julio Lugo, who's batting .288 through 30 games. Josh Beckett recorded a career high 13 Ks but gave up a homer to rookie sensation Evan Longoria, which was enough to get the loss.

4/29 vs. Toronto Blue Jays (1-0 W)
Poor Roy Halladay. If I were to concede defeat for the sake of an opposing player, it would have been tonight for the ace known as "Doc." The man's pitched 4 straight complete games and doesn't have a single win to show for it. I'd never dream of rooting for a division foe, but you have to respect the guy's ability. Tonight's loss, Halladay's third in a row, can be attributed to Vernon Wells' mishandling of Kevin Youkilis' base hit, allowing David Ortiz to score the game-winning run from second base with relative ease.

4/30 vs. Toronto Blue Jays (2-1 W)
Anyone else's health faltering due to these one-run walk-off victories? Vernon Wells had two chances to make up for last night's 9th inning blunder but could only capitalize on one of them. Wells first gunned down Jed Lowrie at the plate after a Brandon Moss single, but his throw on Jason Varitek's base knock was just a second late as Manny Ramirez executed a slick pop-up slide to win the game. The first run came on Big Papi's 5th long-ball of the season.

5/1 vs. Toronto Blue Jays (3-0 L)
It kind of goes without saying in a loss where your team fails to cross the plate at least a single time, but there wasn't much to like in this one. The Sox recorded just 4 hits as a team, but 2 of them came from Ortiz, so I guess that's a positive sign. They left 18 men on base and allowed Jays starter A.J. Burnett to get away with 5 walks over 7.2 innings. Wakefield pitched well enough to keep the Sox in it for a while (3 ER over 7 innings) but the bats never got going. A bit of controversy came late as B.J. Ryan was called for a balk with 2 outs and a runner on, but as you can tell from the score, nothing ever came of it.

5/2 vs. Tampa Bay Rays (7-3 W)
The name of the game in this one was the play of the youngsters. Starter Clay Buchholz was solid over 5.1 innings with 6 Ks and 1 ER. Jacoby Ellsbury, Moss and Pedroia combined for 6 hits and 5 of the team's 7 RBI. On a related note, it was nice to see the Sox give themselves a bit more breathing room than they've enjoyed in their last few wins as they entered the 9th with a 3 run lead... while we're speaking of Moss, he had an emergency appendectomy yesterday. Roster-wise, Moss was already likely to head back to the minors with J.D. Drew returning to the lineup and Sean Casey just days away from coming off the DL.

5/3 vs. Tampa Bay Rays (12-4 W)
Wait a minute - an 8 run victory? The Sox still know how to blow teams out? The players and fans really needed a rout after a string of close wins and losses and that's exactly what we got. Beckett (8 IP, 4 ER, 5K) didn't pitch quite as well as his last time out, but with 9 runs on the board by the end of the 6th, he didn't have to. The Sox didn't have a single player with a round-tripper, but they did record 7 doubles as a team. Big Papi continued to up his average with 3 hits in 5 ABs and 4 players had multiple-RBI games.

On an off-topic yet somewhat related note, does anyone else find this new camera angle NESN is using to zoom in on the pitcher/batter/catcher a bit annoying? Not only does the new angle make it more difficult for viewers to immediately track hits right off the bat, but it also cuts out all the action behind the mesh netting in the field box, loge seats and infield grandstands, meaning we'll never again be able to see Giant Glass president Dennis Drinkwater sprinting out of a game after a walk-off homer. Bummer.