Both pitchers settle down in the second, but in the third, with one down, Lowe gives up a single to Brook Fordyce. Then, on 0-2, he leaves a pitch up to Crawford, who doubles down the line. With the infield in, Baldelli bounces one through the middle. 3–0 Tampa Bay. Huff nearly skulls Lowe with a line single, then Tino singles on a pitch above the waist. 4–0. Dave Wallace visits, meaning we’re going to leave him in. It’s a mistake. Jose Cruz Jr., who’s hitting under .200, doubles to left-center. 6–0. Lenny DiNardo’s warming, but Francona can’t get him in quick enough, as little Julio Lugo takes Lowe off the wall in left for the seventh straight hit. 7–0 D-Rays, and that’s it for D-Lowe.

Zambrano follows with his own nightmare inning, loading the bases with nobody out and giving up three runs. In the fifth, Tek puts one on a catwalk and Johnny doubles in two more.

That’s as close as we get. Timlin and Jamie Brown conspire to give up two runs, putting it out of reach. The D-Rays’ pitchers walked 10, but they also struck out 15, including Manny four times, while the only pitcher of ours who had any success was DiNardo. A complete mess, cancelling out Schilling’s easy win last night. A bigger worry: Lowe, supposedly the best number three starter in baseball, hasn’t won this month.

May 21st

It’s the revenge of the header: MUSSINA LEADS YANKS PAST ANGELS, 6–2. We lose ugly to a last-place club while they beat the team with the best record in baseball (and on top of that, beat their ace, Colon). At least the O’s lost; otherwise it would be a total wipeout.

I’m trying to be optimistic and look ahead, but tonight it’s Arroyo versus Halladay. Our travel day knocked the two rotations out of sync, so Pedro’s facing the lefty Lilly tomorrow. On Sunday, the game we’ll be at, we get the far less interesting Wake versus Miguel Batista. We need two out of three from these guys, but right now the pitching matchups are in Toronto’s favor. Halladay’s stronger than Arroyo, and we have trouble against lefties and historically don’t give Pedro much run support. Wake-Batista’s a toss-up.

Maybe it’s just last night’s game that’s bothering me. If Arroyo can match Halladay and get us to their pen, we should win, and Pedro’s flat-out better than Lilly. Batista’s ERA’s around 5 and, like Zambrano, he walks a lot of batters. If we hit and Wake has the knuckler fluttering, we could sweep.