It's early, but BoSox have Yanks' number

BOSTON – A regular bunch of pinstriped artists, these Yankees. They can't beat the Red Sox, so all they want to do is draw the big picture for you. Joe Girardi talked about the big picture. So did CC Sabathia(notes), Nick Swisher(notes), Derek Jeter(notes) and Johnny Damon(notes). At any moment, you expected the Yankee clubhouse guys to start passing out sketch pads and brushes.

"It hasn't been fun for us against the Red Sox,'' Girardi said after the New York Yankees fell to 0-8 against the Red Sox this season following a 4-3 collapse Thursday in which they couldn't hold a two-run lead in the eighth with their best pitcher, Sabathia, on the mound. "But the big picture is, there is a long way to go.''

Well, we're here to paint a different picture for you, one that doesn't employ the don't-worry, there-are-over-100-games-left broad strokes offered in defeat by the Bombers. Many fans know enough hardball history to recall that as recently as last season, the Tampa Bay Rays spent the summer unable to beat the Red Sox in Fenway Park, then turned it around with a huge series win in September and won the ALCS against Boston in October. Some New Yorkers with longer memories will recall that the powerhouse Mets in 1988 won 10 of 11 regular-season games from the Dodgers, holding them to a grand total of 18 runs in those games, only to lose the NLCS in seven games to L.A.

But these Yankees haven't yet earned the right to take the long view, not when they've been a portrait of shocking imperfection against the Red Sox, displaying flaws that could well mean Steinbrenner & Sons will once again be questioning their investments come October. You pony up over $423 million for three players, like the Yankees did last winter, and you expect masterpieces, not something you'd be embarrassed to hang in your basement.

Maybe that's the real reason for all those empty front-row seats in the new Yankee Stadium. Why pay top dollar to see a team that, whenever their archrival shows up, reminds their fans that the grandeur of their new surroundings can't by itself restore a balance of power that has shifted since 2004 from the Bronx to the Back Bay? Yankees president Randy Levine would disagree, but you might as well spend your bucks on soccer instead.

Before arriving on Yawkey Way this week, the Yankees had a built-in excuse for losing their first five games against the Boston Red Sox. They didn't have A-Rod, who was still recovering from hip surgery.

But this week Rodriguez was back, expensive new bauble Mark Teixeira(notes) came into town riding a hot streak of seven home runs in his last 15 games, and the pitching could hardly have been lined up better – new imports A.J. Burnett(notes) and Sabathia bookending Chien-Ming Wang(notes), who was supposedly on the comeback trail.

So what happens? Burnett and Wang couldn't get out of the third inning in their starts. Burnett had never lost to the Red Sox before this season. He's whiffed twice already in 2009, the first time when he couldn't hold a 6-0 lead in April. Wang pitched so badly, Girardi told him he has one more start to prove he should remain in the rotation.

Sabathia pitched magnificently but was brought down by a guy he could stuff in his back pocket and still have room for his wallet – Dustin Pedroia(notes), the Red Sox gnat who refused to yield in a 10-pitch at-bat before drawing a walk that galvanized Boston's winning rally.

In the series, Yankees hitters were overwhelmed by Josh Beckett(notes), tied into knots by Tim Wakefield(notes), stymied for six scoreless innings by Brad Penny(notes), the pitcher with a "Trade Me" sign on his back, and ultimately snuffed out the last two nights by Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon(notes).

"This is a tough place to close out games,'' Damon said. "It has been for years. We definitely did not envision this at the start of this road trip. We came in here expecting to win some games.

"Look, there are more than 100 games to go. Our day is going to come. But we got outplayed these eight games. They played us well. There have been some close games, some we probably should have won. But we've made way too many mistakes.''

It began with Rodriguez, who couldn't get the ball out of his glove for an easy force play Tuesday night. Yankees right fielder Nick Swisher missed a fly ball Wednesday night, then committed an unholy base-running gaffe Thursday, getting doubled off second by left-fielder Jason Bay(notes) after a leadoff double in the second inning. "I thought the ball was going halfway up the wall,'' Swisher said.

Left-fielder Damon was mortified when David Ortiz's(notes) fly ball landed in his leather, then popped out. The error didn't figure in the scoring, but it was emblematic of a laggard showing by Yankees outfielders, with late-inning replacement Brett Gardner(notes) contributing his own blushing moment with a weak lob to the plate on Mike Lowell's(notes) 240-foot sacrifice fly that scored J.D. Drew(notes) with the winning run in the eighth.

Sabathia, working in rain that began falling steadily in the seventh, had held the Red Sox to three hits, including Ortiz's opposite-field home run in the second on a first-pitch fastball that he left over the plate. He looked poised to deliver the kind of big moment for which the Yankees have paid him all that money, especially after the Bombers scored three times in the top of the seventh against the Red Sox bullpen, Rodriguez's two-out, two-run double the big blow.

"I was trying to get the ball to Mo,'' Sabathia said, referring to Yankees closer Mariano Rivera(notes), who was warming up in the eighth. "It didn't work out too well.''

Nick Green(notes), the No. 9 man in the Boston lineup, led off by slapping a high changeup into left field for a single. Pedroia, the next batter, fouled off five straight two-strike pitches, three of which were clocked at 95 miles per hour, before drawing a walk. J.D. Drew followed by hitting a cutter up the middle for an RBI single, and Sabathia, having expended 123 pitches, was finished.

Moments later, so were the Yankees as reliever Alfredo Aceves(notes) entered and promptly surrendered two singles and Lowell's sacrifice fly. Rivera never got out of the Yankees bullpen this entire series. He watched as Papelbon went 1-2-3 in the ninth, giving him his second save in two nights.

So the Yankees go home to face the Mets, two games behind the Red Sox in the AL East, yet miles behind in how they are perceived.

"I'd like to sit up here and say, 'It never means more than it means,' '' Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "But it's hard not to get excited.''

Now, that's a truer picture.