The quest for 10-0 for Josh Beckett (9-1) was crushed by Colorado Rockies (33-33) third baseman Garrett Atkins who was 3-5 on the night including a grandslam off of Beckett.
Atkins grandslam (5), in the top of third, broke open a game that was 1-0 in favor of the Rockies until he launched Beckett’s 3-1 offering into the Monster Seats.
Beckett only lasted 5 innings, on 10 hits, six earned runs, one walk, one strikeout, and gave up two long balls in his first loss of the season.
Matt Holliday hit the second homerun (11) off of Beckett in the fourth inning running up the score to 6-0 that quickly gave the run support needed for Jeff Francis (6-5) to pick up his sixth win of the season.
Francis also threw for 5 innings but had a completely different game than Beckett. Francis gave up seven hits, zero runs, two walks, and six strikeouts while throwing 103 pitches.
The Boston Red Sox (41-24) had a plethora of chances to score in this game, instead, the Sox left 14 runners on base.
After the Rockies scored off of Beckett in the first inning on a Todd Helton RBI single, J.D. Drew lead off the bottom of the first by flying out, Dustin Pedroia singled, David Ortiz was hit by-a-pitch, but that was all the Sox produced as Manny Ramirez struck out looking and Kevin Youkilis struck out swinging to end the inning.
The bottom of the second looked promising with the Sox having the bases loaded and one out, but yet again Boston did not score any runs. Drew lined out to the shortstop and Pedroia struck out swinging ending another inning where in which the Sox were threatening.
It was all down hill from that inning as it took the Red Sox to score their first run in the seventh on a Mike Lowell RBI single.
Boston has been in a funk lately as they have scored two or fewer runs in seven of their last nine games and have seen the lead over the New York Yankees drop to 7 1/2 games.
