"The "he's safe, no, he's out" play at the plate in the fourth inning destroyed a perfectly good scoring opportunity for the Red Sox.

It would not have turned into such a big deal if Josh Beckett had not used a backhoe to dig the Red Sox into a deep hole before eventually losing, 5-4, last night.

Beckett, the class of the Red Sox rotation all season, could not have had a worse start and his night wound up as tied for his worst of the season.

The very first pitch he threw was hit for a home run by Ichiro Suzuki. The home run was just the second all season by Suzuki, who also had never had a home run and only one RBI in 27 previous at-bats against Beckett.

The start was rough, but it was just one run, not the end of the world.

Not really. Just the beginning of the end.

The next batter, Franklin Gutierrez, singled past shortstop Marco Scutaro. Then, Dustin Ackley doubled to right, sending Gutierrez to third. Still no outs.

The next batter, Mike Carp, kept that no-out stretch going with an RBI single to center field, as the Mariners had built a 3-0 lead.

"A tough first inning; he didn't miss very many bats," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. "Some of the groundballs, they weren't hit hard, some of the balls were hit hard — he just wasn't missing like he normally does. .?.?. We dug ourselves a hole we couldn't quite dig out of."

Wily Mo Pena broke up the no-out streak with a flyout, but Casper Wells did Suzuki one better — blasting a home run to left-center to score Carp. All of a sudden the Mariners were ahead, 5-0."